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Title: Christian Ethics. Volume I.--History of Ethics.
Creator(s): Wuttke, Adolf (1819-1870)
Print Basis: New York: Nelson & Phillips, 1873
CCEL Subjects: All;
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CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
BY DR. ADOLF WUTTKE,
LATE PROFESSOR OF THEOLOGY AT HALLE.
WITH A SPECIAL PREFACE,
BY DR. RIEHM,
EDITOR OF THE "STUDIEN UND KRITIKEN."
TRANSLATED BY
JOHN P. LACROIX.
VOLUME I.--HISTORY OF ETHICS.
NEW YORK:
NELSON & PHILLIPS.
Cincinnati: Hitchcock & Walden.
1873.
Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1873, by
NELSON & PHILLIPS.
In the Office of the Librarian of Congress at Washington.
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LETTER OF AUTHORIZATION.
DECLARATION.
WE, the representatives of the family of the late Dr. Adolf Wuttke,
Professor of Theology at Halle on the Saale, have thankfully accepted
the proposition of Professor JOHN P. LACROIX to translate into English
the deceased author's Christliche Sittenlehre (Wiegandt & Grieben,
Berlin, 1864-5), and we gladly second the wish of the esteemed
translator by expressly and formally authorizing him, on our part, to
publish the work in the English language.
MRS. PROFESSOR WUITTKE,
DR. EDUARD RIEHM,
(as Guardian of the children).
HALLE, March 8, 1872.
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NOTE OF TRANSLATOR.
IN my labor upon this translation I have aimed at the truest practical
reproduction, sentence by sentence, of the thoughts of the author. This
method I deliberately preferred, rather than incur the risk of
impairing the clearness of thought by entirely recasting the forms of
speech. In a few cases I have employed unusual compounds, rather than
resort to paraphrases or to an undue multiplication of subordinate
clauses. On the whole, I am persuaded that those who are best
acquainted with the difficulties of the original will be most indulgent
toward the style of the version. This first volume, although only the
Introduction to the entire work, is yet a complete whole in itself,
viz., a survey of the whole current of the ethical thought of humanity
from the earliest dawn of scientific reflection down to the latest
results in Christian theology.
The motives that led me to undertake the translation have beep various.
Esteemed teachers exhorted me thereto, as soon as notices of the work
began to appear. German scholars spoke to me enthusiastically of its
unparalleled excellence. My chief motive, however, has been a compound
of gratitude and hope,--gratitude to the devout thinker whose work had
been, to me, the medium of so much spiritual good,--and a hope of
helping others to the same good. For, in fact, no other human
production has lifted, for me, so many vails from shadowy places in
Revelation and Providence; none has worked so effectually in
definitively directing. my mind and heart toward that Light which
stands, serene and ever-brightening, over against the comfortless
spectacle of the successive and rapid extinguishment of every effort at
social reform which does not kindle its torch at the central Source of
all light. And no labor that I have ever performed has been attended
with such a joyous consciousness that the very toil itself was
self-rewarding.
As to the specific merits of the work, I am happy to refer the reader
to the considerate words of the distinguished theologian of Halle, Dr.
Riehm, in the special preface which he has prepared for this
translation. I could also, were it desirable, fill many pages with
words of highest praise from the most respectable and the most diverse
sources. And the praise is bestowed not only upon its scientific worth,
but largely also upon the spirit of its author. All critics accord in
testifying that we have to do here with a man singularly endowed with
keenness of philosophic insight and with devoutness of Christian faith.
Whether, however, there is need here in America--where there is so
strong a proclivity to run away after every glittering theological or
social novelty, and where there are so many evidences that the general
consciousness both of preachers and of people is not thoroughly enough
grounded upon the central truths of the Gospel--of a work such as this
(a work which, in so masterly a manner, brings the whole moral life
into vital relation to its only possible Source, and which sweeps away
so thoroughly every social or religious theory which does not stand the
touch-stone of plain Bible-truth), it is for others to judge. We have
been led to augur favorably, however, both from our own studies in the
field and also from the expressed views of many of our most progressive
teachers of ethics, viz., that there is a loud call for something more
solidly philosophical and more thoroughly evangelical than is afforded
by our common text-books on Moral Science; [1] and we feel pretty
confident that few who once drink of the fresh thought-stream here
opened will be disposed to dissent from the well-known utterance [2] of
Dr. Hengstenberg, that Wuttke's Ethics ought to have its place in every
pastor's library.
J. P. L.
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[1] See Dr. Warren's Introduction to Vol. II.
[2] See Evangelische Kirchenzeitung, (Berlin), Sept. 4, 1861.
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SPECIAL PREFACE TO THIS TRANSLATION. [3]
THE author of the work which here appears in English, Dr. Carl
Friedrich Adolf Wuttke, has won for himself a distinguished place in
the evangelical Church and theology of Germany. A few items as to his
life and activity, and as to the spirit and character of his endeavors,
may serve to call attention to a work which is widely circulated and
much read throughout Germany.
Born in Breslau, November 10, 1819, in humble life, the young Wuttke
obtained his preparatory education under circumstances of great
difficulty and self-denial. In 1840 he entered the University of
1reslau in view of studying theology, but he found very little
satisfaction in the theology that was there taught. The superficial
Rationalism which then prevailed in Breslau violently repelled him, and
drove him at once and forever to a position of antagonism to this
stand-point. As neither his religious nor his scientific wants found
satisfaction in his theological teachers, he endeavored to satisfy the
latter, at least, by turning his attention primarily and chiefly to
philosophy. To this end he possessed dialectic talents of unusual
excellence, and he received from the celebrated and, then, fully mature
Braniss fruitful inspiration. His academic career he began in 1848, in
Breslau, as Doctor and privat-docent of philosophy. His preferred field
was the Philosophy of Religion. This led him to thorough studies in the
history of reliions. A fruit of his studies he has embodied in his
"History of Heathenism in respect to religion, knowledge, art, Morals
and Politics, (Breslau, 1852-53),--a work which established his
reputation as a scholar. Utilizing his extensive acquaintance with the
historical material, his chief endeavor was to give here a faithful
objective presentation of the subject-matter, and to avoid doing it
violence by forcing it into harmony with preconceived theories,--and
his success was so great as to obtain for him the warm recognition,
among others, of that master of Indian antiquities, Dr. A. Weber of
Berlin. At the same time, however, he was also able to present the
religioso-historical matter in a clear synoptical order, and to
elucidate it from higher religioso-philosophical stand-points.
The more he pursued his studies in the history and philosophy of
religions, so much the more fully and renewedly he became convinced
that the highest and the only soul-satisfying knowledge of the truth is
to be found only by merging one's self into the Holy Scriptures and
into the therein-witnessed revelations of the living God; hence he felt
himself more and more attracted back to the field of theology. In 1853
he obtained the degree of Licentiate in Theology, and changed his field
of instruction from philosophy to that of theology; having been called
to Berlin, in November, 1854, to an extraordinary professorship of
theology, he found an enlarged and appreciative sphere for the exercise
of his gifts.--In virtue of his firm and independent nature--partly
inborn and partly developed in the severe school of experience--he felt
also a pressing need of a firmly-based construction of his theological
views, and of a clear, distinct, and unambiguous expression of the
same. This need was in part met by the Lutheran form of doctrine. It is
true, he saw very clearly the defects and imperfections which a
scientific construction and demonstration of this doctrinal formula
bring to light; taking into consideration, however, its essential
features, he found in it the purest and truest didactic presentation of
evangelical truth. [4] To preserve this form of the truth in its main
features, and by his own deeper study of the Scriptures as well as by
earnest systematic thought so to raise it to a new scientific
construction that it should express the truth of the Bible in a still
richer degree, and that in its form and demonstration it should answer
the requirements made upon it by the present stand-point of theology
and philosophy, and that it might be raised to a more full development
also in fields wherein it had as yet attained only to an imperfect and
very inadequate expression,--such was the life-task to which Dr. Wuttke
felt himself, with ever-deepening conviction, called by God. And this
life-task he endeavored, in the greatest conscientiousness and in the
most unwearied and exhausting labor, to fulfill. And the animating
spring of his labor was the consciousness so repeatedly expressed by
him, that theology is intrusted with the preservation of sacred
treasures. Fidelity in preserving the intrusted truth-treasure,--such
is the animating spirit of his theologico-scientific labor; and with
this fidelity are connected the limits and imperfections of the same.
In this fidelity he was earnestly resolute, even in the face of the
coryphei of theological and philosophical speculation, in rejecting all
views and thought-constructions which seemed to him foreign to the
spirit of the Holy Scriptures, however much they might seem to he
characterized by profundity or by loftiness of thought, and however
much they might bedazzle by brilliant ingenuity and by their artful
application to Biblical ideas. This fidelity made him a decided.
opponent of all efforts which he regarded as bent on seeking an
accommodation between faith and unbelief. In this fidelity he
deliberately consented to sacrifice the favor and approbation of the
majority of his contemporaries; and he neglected no opportunity, where
he felt the duty of championing the pure evangelical truth and of
assailing perversions and misrepresentations of the same, manfully and
with open visor to enter the lists, and to fight it out with keen
weapons and without respect of persons. It is true he has, in his
earnestness, not always awarded due honor to the views of the
ideally-inclined theologians, nor to the results of historical and
critical Scripture-examination. For his own person, however, he was, in
this work, never concerned, nor for the interests of any party, but
solely and simply for Christian truth and for the kingdom of God.
In this sense and spirit he exercised his office of theological teacher
in Berlin. One can well imagine how glad the late Dr. Hengstenberg was
to have found in him so able a co-laborer, and also that he became
warmly and intimately attached to his younger colleague. [5] But also
the other members of the Berlin faculty, though in part of different
churchly. and theological tendencies, fully appreciated his scientific
ability and his faithful and fruitful academic activity; and they
expressed their esteem publicly by conferring upon him, in 1860, the
doctorate of theology.
In the autumn of 1861 he accepted a call to an ordinary professorship
of systematic theology in our university at Halle. Although, as the
representative of a strictly churchly theology, he stood here somewhat
isolated, still the positive evangelical tendency (a tendency based on
faith in the revelations and redemptive acts of God as witnessed in the
Scriptures) of the other members of the faculty (and among them the
universally known and revered Dr. Tholuck) afforded a broad and firm
basis for a richly productive official co-operation. Highly esteemed by
his colleagues for his straight-forwardness, reliableness, punctuality,
and conscientious fidelity in all his official duties, he exercised,
here, his calling as teacher in a circle of hearers, at first
relatively narrow, but which soon grew visibly larger, especially in
the case of his lectures on Christian ethics; and he had the joy of
seeing the seed, he had sown, spring up and bear fruit in many youthful
hearts,--until on the 12th of April, 1870, after a brief sickness, it
pleased the Lord whom he served to permit him, unexpectedly early, to
pass from faith to sight.
Along-side of his more specific professional activity, Dr. Wuttke was
always ready to serve the church by special addresses, in
ecclesiastical and other assemblies, on weighty questions of the day.
Quite a number of these addresses have been published in Hengstenberg's
"Evangelical Church Journal." To one of them, which was delivered in
1858, at a church-diet at Hamburg, is due the preparation of his
widely-popular and excellent work, "The German Popular Superstition of
the Present," which appeared in 1860 in its first, and in 1869 in a new
and enlarged second, edition. This work combines laborious selection
with a lucid grouping of the abundant material, and is inspired by a
vital interest for the health of the German national life and for the
healing of its defects by the divine power of the Gospel.
For the judgment and appreciation of some portions of the work here
presented to the public, it will not be out of place to observe that
the author took a lively and active part also in the political life of
the nation. As early as during the revolutionary storm of 1848 he
defended for a while, as editor of a conservative journal in
Koenigsberg, the cause of legal order and of the government. And during
his activity among us,--though in other respects living in the greatest
seclusion,--he frequently appeared publicly, in political meetings in
Halle and in other towns of the province of Saxony, as the spokesman of
the constitutional party; and once he took part also in the labors of
the national diet, to which the confidence of his fellow-citizens had
called him.
The work here given to the English-reading public, Christian Ethics,
which appeared in 1861-'62 in its first, and in 1864-'65 in its second,
revised and enlarged, edition, is Dr. Wuttke's only considerable
theological work. He has here entered upon a field, the cultivation of
which, his special life-task as above indicated, must have pressed upon
him with very great urgency. Upon no other field had the scientific
treatment of the theology he represented, remained to such a degree
imperfect and unsatisfactory. Although Christian ethics, after the
precedent of Danaeus on the Calvinistic side, had been raised by
Calixtus to the dignity of an independent theological science,
nevertheless the prevalent one-sidedly dogmatic interest hindered and
prevented its thorough development. And when finally, since the last
decade of the last century, a more lively scientific interest was
turned to the subject, then, unfortunately, Christian ethics became
involved in an almost slavish dependence upon the philosophical systems
of a Kant, a Fichte, a Fries, a Hegel, and a Herbart, as they
successively rose and followed each other. From this cramping pupilage,
ethics was indeed emancipated by the Reconstructor of the collective
body of German theology, Schleiermacher, and also radically renovated
from the basis of the specifically Christianly-ethical principle. But
in Schleiermacher, as well as in Rothe, Christian ethics appeared
rather in the garb of theologico-philosophical speculation; it was not
based directly upon the Holy Scriptures; on the contrary, these highly
deserving men endeavored to be just to the positive Biblical basis of
evangelical Protestantism by undertaking to reconstruct the contents of
the Holy Scriptures directly out of the Christian consciousness; in a
word, these ethical systems stood in no manner of close connection with
ecclesiastical dogmatics. On the other hand, Harless had produced an
ethics based directly upon, and derived from, the Scriptures; but in
his method he had disdained the learned structure and the dialectical
procedure of modern science. Wuttke was the first theologian who made
the attempt, upon the foundation [6] of the Lutheran dogmatical
ground-views as enriched and vitalized by personal self-immersion in
the study of the Scriptures, to carry out, by means of the dialectical
method, (which theology had assumed at the time of the supremacy of
philosophy), a strictly scientific, organic structure of Christian
ethics, which should embody in itself the fruits of precedent labors
upon this field, and also polemically elucidate its relation to the
various other ethical systems. In this work, however, he makes no other
use of this dialectical method than simply to purify theological ethics
from all elements foreign or hostile to the Biblico-ecclesiastical
ground-thoughts, and to bring these ground-thoughts to more complete
expression by process of inner self-development. Hence the great
majority of churchly-minded theologians could, with great reason,
welcome in Wuttke the, until then, lacking scientific standard-bearer
upon the field of ethics; and consequently his work met with an
astonishingly rapid circulation and a thankful reception. But also
those who--as the writer of this preface [7] --stand in many respects
upon the ground of other theological convictions, and who do not fully
agree with many views and judgments expressed in the work, have every
reason highly to prize this system of Ethics, and for the following
reasons: because of its firm Biblical foundation,--because of its sharp
and clear vindication and presentation of the ethical ground-thoughts
of the Holy Scriptures against, and in the face of, various widespread
errors and prevalent thought-currents of the day,--because of its
thoroughly carried-out aim, in connection with all the rigor of a
scientific method, to present in broad and clear light the sublime
directness and simplicity of the truth of the Gospel,--because of the
richness of the subject-matter which it presents, and--to mention
especially one single feature--because of the exceedingly valuable, and
hitherto almost entirely lacking, history both of the science of ethics
and also of the ethical consciousness itself.
I doubt not, therefore, that this work will meet with a hearty welcome
also in America and in England, and that too in theological circles
which, while not sharing the special ecclesiastical views of the
author, will yet not fail worthily to appreciate his conscientious
fidelity to Scripture-truth and the scientific significancy of his
labors; and I feel confident that the work will prove serviceable in
the promotion of a healthy and practically-fruitful theological
knowledge.
DR. EDUARD RIEHM,
Professor, in ordinary, of Theology at Halle.
HALLE, March 14th, 1872.
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[3] Dr. Riehm, who has kindly furnished me this general preface, and to
whom I am indebted for many valuable suggestions in regard to my
undertaking, is one of the professors of theology at Halle, and also
editor-in-chief of the Studien und Kritiken.--Tr.
[4] As a German Protestant, Dr. Wuttke had practically only two choices
in his Church-relations, namely, between the Lutheran Church and the
Reformed or Calvinistic Church. The so-called "United" Church of
Prussia has little more than a legal existence, the individual
societies having mostly remained essentially Lutheran or Reformed, as
before the union.--TR.
[5] Dr. Wuttke, however, was free from the ultra-confessionalism of
Hengstenberg; he even favored the "Union." See Neue evangelische
Kirchenzeitung of May 7, 1870.--Tr.
[6] That in the construction of his ethical system, Dr. Wuttke did not
allow the Lutheran symbols to construe the Bible, but on the contrary
measured them by the Bible, and freely criticized them where found
defective, we have both his own reiterated avowal (as where, S: 80, he
declares it his purpose to write, not on ethics of this or that Church,
but a Christian Ethics; and where, in his preface, p. 4, he declares
the governing principles of his labors to be "honest loyalty to the
Gospel"); and also his actual contrasting of the Lutheran and the
Reformed ground-views (see S: 37), and his ample admission that the
Lutheran view needs to be complemented.--Tr.
[7] I am indebted to Dr. P. Schaff for the following: "Dr. Riehm is a
liberal Unionist of the critical school of Hupfeld, his
predecessor."--Tr.
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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
TO THE FIRST EDITION.
THE theology of the nineteenth century has aimed at giving special
prominence to the ethical phase of Christianity; and yet, strangely
enough, the scientific treatment of Christian ethics has shown, as
compared to the other branches of theology, a far inferior
productiveness, and in fact a degree of barrenness. This phenomenon is
not explainable from any precedent over-fruitfulness. nor from any
unquestioning satisfaction with any already-attained
relatively-definitive perfection of the science, nor from the imposing
pre-eminence of any exceptionally great author; on the contrary, every
competent theologian knows perfectly well that no other branch of
theology is so far from having reached any, even relatively, settled
completeness and generally-accepted form and contents, as precisely the
science of ethics. Even the very idea, contents, and boundaries of
ethics, are as yet in many respects so unsettled that the different
presentations of the science have often only very remote resemblances
to each other; and there are some recent theologians who look upon the
ethical field as something like an ownerless primeval forest wherein
they are at liberty to roam at simple discretion and to give free scope
to all sorts of pet speculations. We would of course not wish to shut
the field of theology against philosophical thought; on the contrary,
we regard its scientific completion as possible only on condition of
its permeation with mature philosophical thought-labor. In view,
however, of the not only manifold, but also (in very deep-reaching and
essential ground-principles) self-contradicting philosophical systems
of the time, we could not advise Theology--that guardian of sacred
treasures--to cast itself away, in characterless self-forgetfulness,
into the arms of the first transiently-shining philosophical system,
and to seek its glory only in a pliable self-conformity to the
rapidly-passing Protean forms of the philosophies of the day.
Remarkable indeed, though not precisely very praiseworthy, is the
metamorphic capability of those theologians who have kept pace in their
theology with the entire history of philosophy from Kant down to Hegel,
and have furnished the public at each decade with an entirely different
form of theology. It is not scientific truthfulness to attempt
violently to force together irreconcilable elements; and it is high
time that the day were past when men presume to introduce Spinozistic
and other kindred Hegelian conceptions into Christian ethics as its own
contents proper. We fully recognize the high services of precisely the
latest forms of philosophy, for the science of ethics; but we must
guard against allowing theological ethics, as conscious of its divinely
revealed contents, and as basing itself upon the holy Scriptures, to be
cramped and thrown into the background by these philosophical systems.
Precisely the most recent developments in this field justify us in
entertaining, at this point, a prudent distrust. The manner in which
some have introduced philosophical, or a so-called "theological,
speculation" into the field of Christian ethics, reminds one only too
much of the feats of the suitors of Penelope in the house of Ulysses,
who presume to cast their footstools at the head of the returning
master, and yet prove incapable even of bending the bow of the hero, to
say nothing of shooting through the twelvefold target.
What we attempt in the present work is neither speculative ethics nor
yet Biblical ethics in the sense of a purely exegetico-historical
science, but, in fact, a system of theological ethics based on the
substance and spirit of the Bible, and constructed into a scientific
form, not by the help of a philosophy foreign to that spirit, but by
the inner self-development of the spirit itself. Whether we have
properly comprehended this spirit, and whether we have faithfully
learned from the general history of science, including also philosophy,
others will have to judge; this much, however, we know, that we have
endeavored to acquire such learning only in honest loyalty to the
Gospel. And the fact that we have omitted to employ many technical
forms that have been imposed upon this science by ingenious authors,
will, we hope, be regarded, by those who have grown familiar with said
forms, as at least an indication of a sincere endeavor on our part to
avoid breaking the impression of simple evangelical truth by any
element foreign to the spirit of the Scriptures, however much it may
enjoy the prestige of profundity, and however artfully it may have been
fitted upon Christian ideas.
BERLIN, Dec. 31, 1860.
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AUTHOR'S PREFACE
TO THE SECOND EDITION.
WITHIN a surprisingly brief period a new edition of this System of
Ethics has become necessary.
To many critics of' the work we feel ourselves thankfully indebted; of
others, however, we regret to have to say that, instead of scientific
earnestness, they have manifested only passionate hostility. It is
true, we have gone at our work with honesty and plainness of speech,
and have touched somewhat ungently upon certain sore places in the more
recent forms of theology; and the tone of ill-will in which the
opposers have indulged would seem to indicate that the right spot has
been probed; and we are in fact cheerfully ready to be subjected to the
most searching criticism. There is an immense difference, however,
between actual confutation and unworthy abuse. Some critics have
charged this work with being an "attentat" against the "inalienable"
conquests of modern science; this sounds almost as badly as when, in
times past, a certain class of theologians spoke of "attentats" against
the teachings of the Church and against the symbolical books. There is,
in fact, in the field of contemporary unbelief both an "orthodoxy"
which does not stand a whit behind the intolerance of former and much
despised ages in its hereticating of dissenters, and an authority-faith
in the so-called "heroes" of contemporary science, which exalts the
pretentions of the said science to infallibility in exact proportion as
it is zealous against a real faith in the Scriptures, and tramples
their claims into the dust. Just such a deference to writers who let
only their own light shine, (a light kindled not at the divine light,
but only at the faintly-shining wisdom of the anti-Christian world,)
still weighs down like an Alp upon the theology of the present day, and
especially upon ethics; and to do battle against a spiritual despotism
of this character, must be to take a step in the direction of true
progress. Incredulity constitutes, in fact, in our day no slight
recoinmendat4on; will the public, therefore, not let us enjoy the
advantage of a little incredulity as to the Apostolical calling of
certain recent authors who have forced the Pantheism of Spinoza into
the doctrines of Christianity? We are not unaware, however, that only
that one can hope for favor and popularity with the multitude of
to-day, who makes amends for his faith in the living Christ by strewing
incense upon the altars of the divinities of recent literature,--who
fuses together the Apostolical doctrines with the unquestioningly
infallible-assumed "results of modern culture,"--in a word, who selects
the golden middle-way between simple evangelical faith and God-denying
unbelief: the tints just now in vogue are indefinite and indesignable.
We frankly confess that, in scientific respects, we can less readily
come to an understanding with this nondescript olla-podrida theology
than with those who make a clean sweep of Christianity at once. Upon
firm earth one can walk erect, in water one can swim; but in a miry
marsh, which mingles earth and water together, one can neither walk nor
swim. We must submit to let those who imagine that they stand or swim
upon the heights of "modern" culture look disdainfully down upon us,
and reproach us with not being abreast with the times; let them do that
to which they are called; we, however, have a sure prophetic word, and
we think we do well to give heed to it as to a light that shines in a
dark place, until the day dawn and the morning-star arise in the hearts
of all, [2 Peter i, 19]; and we feel confident that in so doing we have
chosen the "good part, which will not be taken from us" when the
specious fruits of the un-Christian culture of the day shall be swept
away, without leaving a trace, by the streams of still newer progress.
To those to whom appreciation for recent science is synonymous with an
unconditional homage to every pretentiously-rising system, we must be
content to appear as non-appreciative; meantime, however, may we not
suggest that these gentlemen would do well to come to an understanding
among themselves as to precisely which of the more recent and violently
inter-contradictory systems represents the real progress proper, and as
to how long it will do so, before we be peremptorily required to
disregard the exhortation of the Holy One, to "hold that fast which
thou hast, that no man take thy crown" [Rev. iii, 11]. We regard it as
the first scientific duty of a true truth-seeker not to suffer himself
to be captivated by the flickering glare of great names and by the
sham-gold of pretended latest discoveries, and not to let himself be
intoxicated and carried away by the indiscriminate applause of the
multitude. We greatly rejoice to see that precisely the most recent
productions upon the field of ethics (Harless, Schmid, Palmer) give
proof of evangelical soundness, and we shall anxiously await to see
whether the rapidly-erring and deteriorating "theology of progress"
will not, in its turn, enter upon this field,--whether Rothe, who
(encouraged and urged on by the well-calculated applause of this party)
shows as yet no signs of hesitation to do service in the ranks of the
sympathizers with Strauss and Renan, will not make up his mind to turn
to the service of sound words, or whether in the interest of an
erroneous system he will drive even still deeper the wounds which he
has already inflicted upon evangelical faith,--to which at bottom his
heart belongs.
HALLE, August, 1864.
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CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTION.
I. THE IDEA OF ETHICS, AND THE POSITION OF THIS SCIENCE IN THE FIELD OF
SCIENCE IN GENERAL
13
S: 1. THE IDEA
13
S: 2. PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS
16
S: 3. THEOLOGICAL ETHICS
21
II. THE SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF ETHICS, S: 4 27
III. THE HISTORY OF ETHICS AND OF THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN GENERAL,
S: 5
35
A. THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND THE ETHICS OF HEATHEN NATIONS, S: 6
37
S: 7. THE UNHISTORICAL NATIONS; THE CHINESE
43
S: 8. THE INDIANS
47
S: 9. THE EGYPTIANS AND THE SEMITIC NATIONS
54
S: 10. THE PERSIANS
58
S: 11. THE GREEKS
62
S: 12. SOCRATES
69
S: 13. THE 0YNICS AND THE CY RENAICS
72
S:S: 14-15. PLATO
75
S:S: 16-21. ARISTOTLE
92
S:S: 22-25. THE EPICUREANS AND THE STOICS
126
S: 26. THE SKEPTICS AND THE NEO-PLATONISTS; THE ROMANIS
144
B. OLD TESTAMENT AND JEWISH ETHICS.
S: 27. THE CANON OF THE OLD TESTAMENT
151
S: 28. THE APOCRYPHAL BOOKS, THE TALMUD
169
[ISLAMISM]
171
C. CHRISTIAN ETHICS, S: 29
173
1. THE ANCIENT CHURCH, S:S: 30, 31
180
2. THE MIIDDLE AGES, S: 32
199
S:S: 33, 34. SCHOLASTICS AND CASUISTICS
200
S: 35. TItE MYSTICS AND THE PROTO-REFORMERS
223
3. THE EPOCH OF REFORM, S: 36
233
S: 37. THE EVANGELICAL ETHICS OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH
CENTURIES
235
S:S: 38, 39. ROMISH ETHICS
255, 273
S: 40. PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS BEFORE KANT
217
S: 41. DEISTIC AND NATURALISTIC ETHICS
301
S: 42. THE EVANGELICAL ETHICS OF THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
324
S: 43. KANT
32
S: 44. FICHTE
338
S: 45. SCHELLING; JACOBI
341
S: 46. HEGEL AND HIS SCHOOL
345
S: 47. THE MOST RECENT PHILOSOPHY
355
S: 48. THE EVANGELICAL ETHICS OF THE NINETEENTH CENTURY
359
S: 49. ROMISH ETHICS
375
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
INTRODUCTION.
__________________________________________________________________
I. IDEA OF ETHICS, AND THE POSITION OF THIS SCIENCE IN THE FIELD OF SCIENCE IN
GENERAL.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION I.
ETHICS, as belonging to the sphere both of philosophy and of theology,
is the science of the moral, and hence Christian ethics is the science
of Christian morals. But the moral lies in the sphere of the freedom of
rational creatures, as in contrast to mere nature-objects. Man, as a
rational being, has the end of his life, not as one realizing itself in
him spontaneously and with unconditional necessity, but, on the
contrary, he has it primarily only ideally, in his rational
consciousness, so that he cannot attain to it by a mere unconscious
letting himself alone, but only by a personally and freely-willed
life-activity; but also, for that very reason, he can fail of it by his
own fault;-- and the essence of this life-development of man, as
relating to the realizing of his rational life-purpose, is the moral;
that is, when normal, the morally-good, and when guiltily-perverted,
the morally-evil.
So much merely preliminarily; the more complete demonstration can be
given only further on. The sphere of freedom is that of the moral;
whatever is moral is essentially free, and whatever is free is moral.
There is, indeed, an immorally-incurred unfreedom, but even this
unfreedom is essentially different from the unfreedom of nature. He
who, in contradiction to the Christian as well as to the
universally-human consciousness, denies moral freedom in general, and
places even man's moral activity into the sphere of unconditional
necessity, may indeed give a description of the seemingly-moral, but he
cannot place upon man a moral requirement; in the presence of the
"must" the "should" disappears. Such a denier would at least have to
regard the contradictory and almost universal consciousness of freedom
as also posited by unconditional necessity--thus surrendering all right
to assail the same. We may therefore here preliminarily presuppose it
as the utterance of the general human consciousness when not perverted
by one-sided theories, that the moral lies neither in the sphere of
cognition nor of natural necessity, but in the sphere of the freedom of
the rational will. Where there is no freedom of will, there we speak
neither of the morally-good nor of the morally-evil. Moral willing,
however, is not of a blind, fortuitous, but of a rational, character;
that is, it wills a rational something, something willed by God, and
that too in a rational manner--or, indeed, it wills it not; but also
this non-willing, that is, the morally-evil, relates, though
negatively, to a rational end.
In the Scriptures, the ethical phase of Christian doctrine is
designated as "the knowledge of God's will in all wisdom and spiritual
understanding" (Col. i, 9); that is, of that which God "requires" of us
(Deut. x, 12; comp. Phil. iv, 8). Of other definitions of ethics we
will mention but the more important. Unquestionably all such are to be
rejected as express merely an outward collection of single moral
thoughts, as, e. g., "an ordered digest of rules by which man, and,
more specifically, a Christian, is to shape his life;" this would not
be a science, but only a collection of material for a science;
moreover, rules are only one phase of the moral thought, for rules must
have a basis, an end, and an inner logical unity, all of which lies
outside of this definition. Many writers designate ethics as the
description of a morally normal development. But, properly speaking,
only that can be described which is real; not, however, that which
simply ought, but is not necessitated, to become real. Even the
describing of the person of Christ as the ideal of the moral, gives
only a part of Christian ethics, inasmuch as Christ could not, in his
actual life, represent all the phases of the moral. And besides, ethics
has not merely to do with the morally-normal, but it has also to treat
of sin and the contest with it as an actual power; and, moreover, it
has not merely to describe, but also to prove and to establish.
The majority of theological moralists present at once the definition of
Christian ethics; but this more restricted notion cannot be understood
without the more comprehensive notion of ethics in general. The
declaration (Harless and others) that ethics is the theoretical
presentation of the Christianly-normal life-course, or the
development-history of man as redeemed by Christ, is both too narrow
and too broad at the same time: too narrow, inasmuch as ethics must
unquestionably speak also of the non-normal life-course, and that, too,
not merely incidentally and introductorily, but as of one of its
essential elements; and too broad, because, in fact, many things belong
to such a life-course which belong not to the sphere of the moral, but
to the objective workings of divine grace upon the moral subject. Such
a definition is rather that of the order of Christian salvation, which,
however, is not wholly embraced in the notion of the moral. It is true,
Christian ethics must take into consideration the workings of divine
grace, but only, however, as its presupposition; the becoming seized
upon by the influence of divine grace leads, indeed, to morality, but
lies not itself in the, moral sphere. According to Schleiermacher,
Christian ethics is "the presentation of communion with God as
conditioned by communion with Christ, the Redeemer, in so far as this
communion with God is the motive of all the actions of the Christian,
or the description of that manner of action which springs from the
domination of the Christianly-determined self-consciousness;" [8] this,
however, is two mutually complementing definitions, each of which
expresses by itself only one phase of ethics.
As to the name applied to the science, the German expression
"Sittenlehre," usual since the time of Mosheim, is ambiguous, being
capable of being understood as the doctrine of customs instead of the
doctrine of the moral. The term ethics is the most ancient, as dating
from Aristotle himself; ethos, radically related to ethos, from the
root ezo, "to set" and "to sit," signifies in Homer the seat, the
dwelling-place, the home, and hence, at a later period, that which has
become the fixed definite home of the spirit--that wherein the spirit
feels itself at home as in its own peculiar element, and hence manner,
primarily in the sense of habit; that is, a manner of action as having
become second nature. In this sense the word ethe occurs also in the
New Testament (1 Cor. xv, 33.) But the signification of the word
advances, further, to that of the moral proper, as objective-grown
custom, which presents itself to the individual with the authority of
law; ethos is therefore a spiritual power to which the individual
subordinates himself, as in contradistinction to the rude lawlessness
of man as uncultured and savage, and which, in so far as it is no
longer a power foreign and opposed to man, appears as character. [9]
The Romans used generally, for this idea, the term mores, and hence
Cicero and Seneca speak of a philosophia moralis. In Germany this
science was formerly called "Moral"--theologia s. philosophia
moralis--and frequently also theologia s. philosophia practica. But
after the word "Moral" had been appropriated by the advocates of
deistic illuminism, and degraded into the most spiritless
superficiality, the term became involved in such prejudicial
associations that later writers preferred to avoid it, and resorted
again to the German term used by Mosheim, or to the one originally used
by Aristotle.
__________________________________________________________________
[8] Christl. Sitte, pp. 32, 33.
[9] Aristot., Eth. Nic., i, 13.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION II.
As a philosophical science, ethics forms a part of the philosophy of
the spirit,--has as presuppositions speculative theology and
psychology, and stands in the closest relation to the science of
history as the objective, realization of the moral life. As standing
within the science of spirit, it presents, as in contrast to knowledge,
the active phase of the rational spirit-life, whereby man, as having
come to rational self-consciousness, makes into reality that which
exists in hirm primarily only as an idea,--makes his
spiritually-rational nature as existing objectively to him into a
nature freely-willed and posited by himself.
All philosophy has to do essentially with three objects: the thoughts
of God, of nature, and of the human spirit. Ethics, as belonging to the
third sphere, has, co-ordinate to itself within this sphere, the
science of psychology as treating of the nature of the individual mind
and of its development, and the science of history as portraying the
development of the collective spirit; it is in some sense the unity of
the two; it is psychology, in that it presents, in fact, the highest
form of the soul-life, the rationally-free life; and it is history, in
that it embraces man not as isolated, but as an organic member of the
whole, and considers his activity as directed toward the rational
shaping of collective humanity. Ethics gives to history its rational
goal; and all morality has the perfect shaping of universal history as
its ultimate end. A real understanding of history is not possible
without ethics; universal history is the realization of the moral--the
good and also the evil--within humanity; hence history, the actual
contents of which lie of course outside of the sphere of purely
philosophical knowledge, is an important teacher of morality--teaching
by example in sacred history, and by caution and warning in profane.
The position here assigned to philosophical ethics takes the definition
of that science in its widest sense, and embraces also right and art.
While the view which merges morality essentially into either right or
art is very one-sided and a mistaking of the nature of the moral in
general, it would not be less erroneous entirely to shut out the moral
from these two spheres, and to place it simply along-side of them; the
moral is rather, as the superior element, above them, and right and art
have truth only in so far as they are special realization-forms of the
moral; there is, in truth, no immoral right and no immoral beauty,
although by sinful man the wrong is often regarded as right, and the
un-beautiful as beautiful.
Schleiermacher, in his Philosophical Ethics, gives a definition of
philosophical ethics, based on the views of Fichte and Schelling, which
entirely differs from the usual one. In assuming two chief sciences,
that of nature and that of reason, whereof each may be treated either
empirically or speculatively, according as the reality or the essence
of the object is more directly taken into view, he obtains four
sciences in all. The empirical science of nature is natural history;
the speculative science of nature is physics; the empirical science of
reason is history; the speculative science of reason is ethics. Hence
ethics "is the knowledge of the essence of reason," and stands in the
same relation to history as speculation to experience, and is hence
essentially the philosophy of history. Under such conditions it would
be more correct to call ethics the philosophy of the spirit; but
Schleiermacher evades this, no less manifest than necessary,
consequence; logic and psychology belong, according to him, not to
ethics, for psychology corresponds to natural history, and hence is
"the empirical knowledge of the activity of the spiritual;" and logic
belongs, empirically-treated, to psychology, and,
speculatively-treated, to physics. [10] Though, by means of this
strange conception of logic and psychology, the immeasurable sphere of
ethics as fixed by the first definition is somewhat reduced, still
there yet remains for it a very unusually wide field, and it embraces,
with the exception of physics, the whole of philosophical theology and
of the philosophy of history; and as natural history and physics have
like extent of field, differing only in point of view taken, so the
fields of empirical history and of ethics are also co-extensive, and
ethics is nothing other than the speculative consideration of history.
"History is the example-book of ethics, and ethics is the form-book of
history;" but history is, when so viewed, every thing which is not mere
nature; and as, in the highest instance, nature and reason are
essentially identical, nature being reason, and reason nature, hence'
in the highest view of the matter ethics is physics and physics
ethics," whereas in a lower view of the matter ethics is conditioned,
as to contents and form, by physics, and physics by ethics. It is
evident at once that according to these definitions ethics is something
entirely other than what is usually understood thereby in the
scientific world; and it involves not a little courage to undertake to
justify the applying of the term ethics to this extensive field. This
scientifically-unjustifiable extension of the field of ethics has
occasioned much confusion; and Rothe's "Theological Ethics" suffers
also from this lack of limitation, whereas Schleiermacher himself
carefully avoided applying to theological ethics this philosophical
conception, which in fact sprang more from an ingenious thought-play
than from an inner consequential development of the ground-principle.
Indeed, even in his philosophical ethics, Schleiermacher very soon
introduces a much narrower notion, without any logical justification
thereto ill his system. Thus ethics is, presently, made to appear as
"the scientific presentation of human action," which manifestly cannot
be regarded as identical with the notion of the "speculative knowledge
of the essence of reason." But also this new declaration is much too
indefinite; it is not action in general, but moral action, that belongs
to ethics. Should we thus find this narrower definition too
comprehensive still, then we are relieved by the declaration that
ethics is the "speculative knowledge of the collective activity of
reason upon nature," and are at once thrown into a field so narrow as
to be obliged to exclude from ethics a very essential, nay, the most
essential, part of this science. For all morality is not embraced in an
activity of reason upon nature; in however wide a sense "nature" be
taken, still it always stands over against reason as of a different
character,--is that which, in empirical respects, constitutes the field
of natural science, natural history, etc. The moral cultivation of the
heart--humility, truthfulness, the moral disposition in general, the
whole sphere of the purely spiritual life--belongs not at all to this
activity upon nature. On the other hand, this definition is also much
too comprehensive, inasmuch as there may be also an extra-moral and an
immoral interpenetration of reason and nature, and an immoral activity
of reason upon nature; but should it be said that this, now, would not
be the true moral reason, then this would virtually imply that the
moral is to be sought elsewhere than in this activity of reason upon
nature,--would place it in reason as such. As, in the view of
Schleiermacher, ethics is only the speculative reverse-side of history,
hence he requires, consequentially enough, that it be presented
essentially historically. "The style of ethics is the historical; for
only where manifestation and law are given as the same is the view
taken a scientific one. Hence the style can be neither imperative nor
consultative. The form of ethics is the development of a theoretical
view. The formula of the should' is entirely inadmissible, as this
formula rests upon an antagonism to the law, whereas it is the part of
science to present this antagonism as a mere appearance." This
position, (harmonizing with the view expressed in his "Discourses on
Religion,") which, from the stand-point of Pantheistic determinism, is
quite consequential, we simply mention in passing, in order to explain,
in some manner, this position of ethics in Schleiermacher. Even as the
other speculative science, namely, physics, does not present what
should be, but what really is and must be, so also Pantheistic ethics
has to do only with the "is" and the "must be," but not with the
"should;" all reality is here rational; all disagreement with the law
is mere appearance; there exists nothing else than what must be; hence
ethics has simply to present for the reason-life the laws, even as
physics, for the nature-life, and is just as certain of the agreement
of reality with these laws as astronomy is certain of the occurrence of
a calculated eclipse of the moon. On the contrary, so soon as by the
admission of moral will-freedom, even the possibility of an antagonism
of moral reality to the moral law is conceded, ethics presents itself
at once with the should; for the moral law has unconditional validity,
whether man really fulfills it or not. Ethics is only in so far purely
historical as perfect morality is also personal reality; hence
Christian ethics bears, indeed, essentially also a historical
character, because Christ is, for it, the moral ideal;--for others,
however, it bears the form of the "should." Pantheistic ethics makes
collective humanity the real expression of the moral idea,--makes
humanity its Christ. And that Schleiermacher's philosophical ethics is
by no means free of a Pantheistic character, is undeniable.
Hegel conceives of ethics as one of the phases of the Philosophy of the
Spirit, and more specifically as the sphere of the objective spirit in
contradistinction to that of the subjective, which embraces
anthropology, the phenomenology of the spirit, and psychology. The
spirit, as having come to itself and become free, realizes itself, in
that, as free rational will, it posits itself outwardly,--forms for
itself a world corresponding to itself, which is the expression of the
spirit. This objective reality of the free spirit, which becomes for
the individual subject an objective power whereby the subject is
determined in his freedom, and which consequently is to be recognized
by the individual, is, as of a universal character, for the individual,
law. Hence this will of objective rationality is right, which becomes
for the individual, duty. But in that right does not remain a merely
objective power, but makes itself immanent in the individual subject,
so that the individual will becomes an expression of the general will,
and right finds in the subject free recognition--becomes subjective
disposition--so the notion of right transforms itself into that of
morality, which in its turn--by not remaining merely subjective, but by
forming for itself in the spheres of the family, of civil society, and
of the state, a complete rational reality, wherein the free spirit
finds its self-created and perfectly self-answering home--exalts itself
to customariness. [11] Hegel styles this development of the objective
spirit, not ethics--to which he surely had a higher right than
Schleiermacher for his much more comprehensive notion, (inasmuch as the
ethical is the highest phase of this development,) --but the philosophy
of right. The entire contents of this philosophy of right fall indeed
into the sphere of ethics in the wider sense of the term, though the
entire contents of Christian ethics do not fall into the sphere of this
philosophy of right. Ethics has, according to the Christian view, not
merely to create an objective world of rationality, but also to make
the moral personality itself a perfect expression of rationality; hence
many things which Hegel treats of in the philosophy of the subjective
spirit belong to ethics; and this is doubtless the principal reason why
Hegel (much more cautious and less arbitrary in his notions and their
definitions than Schleiermacher) designates the science of the
objective spirit, not ethics, but the doctrine of right.
__________________________________________________________________
[10] System der Ethik, edited by Schweizer, 1835, S:S: 55, sqq., 60,
61, 87.
[11] Philosophie des Geistes, S: 481, sq.; Rechtsphilosophie, p. 22,
sqq.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION III.
As a theological science ethics forms a part of systematic theology, in
which it stands in closest connection with dogmatics, and has dogmatics
as its immediate presupposition. The two sciences belong together in
organic unity, and cannot be entirely separated from each other.
Dogmatics presents the essence, the contents, and the object of the
religious consciousness; ethics presents this consciousness as a power
determining the human will. Dogmatics embraces the good as reality,
that is, as it, through God, is, or becomes, or, by the fault of moral
creatures, is not; ethics, on the contrary, embraces this good as a
task for the free, and hence moral, activity of man; that is, as, on
the basis of the religious consciousness, it should become in reality.
Dogmatics presents reality, in the sphere of the divine and religious,
for man, as an object of the religious consciousness; on the contrary,
ethics presents the religions consciousness as a power creating a
spiritual reality; that is, it presents a reality as going out from man
as a religions subject. Hence dogmatics bears predominantly an
objective character--relates to knowledge; and ethics predominantly a
subjective character--relates to willing.
Theoretical theology--in contradistinction to practical theology, which
presents the ecclesiastico-pastoral application of the subject-matter
given in theoretical theology--is partly historical and partly
systematic. Ethics has indeed a historical foundation, and stands in
constant relation to history, but in itself it is no more history than
is dogmatics; exegesis and Church history furnish only the material for
ethics. The separating of ethics from dogmatics, with which it was
formerly, and up to the time of Danaeus and Calixtus, intimately
involved, is difficult, and, in fact, not without violence, entirely
practicable; both sciences reach over into each other like two
intersecting circles, and have, under all circumstances, some territory
in common; the general foundations of ethics are based in the
corresponding thoughts of dogmatics.
The usual and quite natural statement, that dogmatics shows what we
should believe, and ethics what we should do, is only proximatively
correct, and is inadequate; for also the moral laws and maxims are an
object of faith; and "what we should believe" bears, even in the
correct expression itself, the character of a moral requirement.
Believing, itself, is of a moral character; ethics cannot confine
itself to the mere outward action, but must have to do also with the
inward, with the disposition. According to Harless, dogmatics presents
the essence of the objective ground of salvation, and of the objective
mediation of salvation, whereas ethics presents the subjective
realization of the life-goal as established by Christ; dogmatics
presents the objective salvation-power as determining the Christian;
ethics presents the personal life-movement of the Christian toward his
highest life-goal; ethics gives answer to the question, What thinkest
thou of Christ? dogmatics to the question, What thinkest thou of the
right manner of the Christian's life in the world? This declaration
limits the two sciences quite too much: dogmatics must in fact speak
also of man and of the order of salvation; and ethics must speak also
of the objective law and of sin. According to Schleiermacher's
theological ethics, ethics presents the Christian self-consciousness in
its relative motion, while dogmatics presents the same in its relative
rest; dogmatics answers the question, What must be, because the
religious heart-state is? ethics the question, What must become out of
the religious self-consciousness and through the same, because the
religious self-consciousness is? This antithesis is not entirely to the
point, for, on the one hand, dogmatics treats not merely of what is,
but also of what becomes, as, e. g., in the doctrines of regeneration
and of eschatology; as, on the other hand, ethics treats not only of
what becomes, but necessarily also of what morally is, as well normally
as abnormally. Virtue is not a mere becoming, but an ens, as
Schleiermacher himself admits; the good when attained, certainly does
not for that reason cease to be an object of ethics. The antithesis of
motion and rest is in this sphere utterly unapt. Schleiermacher
presents the matter also thus: the dogmatical propositions are those
which express the relation of man to God as an interest, namely, as,
under its manifold modifications, it passes over into conceptions;
whereas the ethical propositions express the same thing, but as an
inner impetus, horme, an impulse, which goes out into a cycle of
actions. But also this is not quite correct; for also ethics expresses
a relation of man to God in conceptions or thoughts, which do not per
se include in themselves an inner impetus, as, e. g., in the questions
as to the moral essence of man, as to the moral idea per se, and in the
entire doctrine of goods.
The difficulty in defining the difference lies less in the general
antithesis than rather in those points where both sciences must treat
of the same topics. The doctrines of the moral essence of man, of the
divine law, of sin, of sanctification, of the Church, belong strictly
to dogmatics; but ethics must necessarily treat also of all these
things, so that it might after all seem advisable, in order to avoid
repetitions, to unite both into one science again, as was formerly the
case, and as has been done recently by Nitzsch, and in part also by
Sartorius. But the separate treatment of ethics rests in fact, aside
from weighty practical reasons, upon a wide-reaching inner difference;
and those points which fall within the scope of both sciences, are
nevertheless treated, in each, from a different stand-point, and in a
very different manner. Both of them present a life pf the spirit--of
God or of man--but dogmatics views this life as an objective fact,
while ethics views it as a task for the free activity of the rational
subject; hence dogmatics has essentially an objective and real
character, while ethics has a subjective and ideal one. Dogmatics has
constantly to do with an object transcending the individual, with God,
with Christ, with man in general; ethics has to do primarily always
with the individual moral person, and with the totality only in so far
as it rests upon the moral action of the individual personality. What
dogmatics teaches relates not to me as this single person, but as a
human being in general; what ethics teaches concerns me precisely as a
person. Dogmatics treats of sin per se, as an objective something and
as an historical fact; ethics treats of the same as a personal malady
and as guilt. Dogmatics treats of the kingdom of God as an objective
organism; ethics treats of the same in so far as the moral subject is
an organic member thereof. Dogmatics treats of sanctification as a
manifestation-forum of the kingdom of God; ethics treats of the same as
a subjective life-manifestation of the person. "The kingdom of God
comes indeed without our prayer"--that is dogmatical; "but we ask in
this prayer that it come also to us"--this is ethical. Dogmatics
sketches the physical chart of the kingdom of God; ethics sketches the
ways and dwelling-places therein. The object of dogmatics is absolutely
independent of the freedom of the individual subject--is either eternal
or an historical fact--is in nowise within the power of man; the object
of ethics is, in its reality, absolutely dependent on the free
resolution of the subject--is per se a pure idea, the realization of
which is a requirement upon the free activity of man.--Dogmatics
presents that which is, or was, or will be; ethics presents that which
should be or should not be; hence dogmatics presents always an
unconditionally-secured result, either of an accomplished or of a
destined movement; ethics, however, presents a task, the accomplishing
of which is conditioned on the free assent of man. The contents of
dogmatics relate essentially to knowledge and faith; those of ethics to
volition. Dogmatics wills that man accept the truth; ethics wills that
he do it. Hence man's relation to dogmatics is rather passive--womanly;
and to ethics rather active--manly. In the sphere of dogmatics there is
a revelation of the divine for man; in that of ethics a revelation of
the divine through man, who has received this element into himself. In
dogmatics the movement of the divine goes out from the divine
middle-point toward the created periphery; in ethics, on the contrary,
it goes back from the periphery toward God as the middle-point. In
dogmatics God is conceived of as the ground, as the point of departure;
in ethics as the goal of the life-movement; in dogmatics man's relation
is more epic; in ethics more dramatic. Dogmatics is predominantly
ontological and historical; ethics is predominantly teleological. Both
sciences treat of man and his activity--dogmatics, however, in so far
as man is an object for God; ethics, in so far as God is an aimed-at
object for man. Dogmatics is related to ethics, as psychology to
pedagogy, as physiology to dietetics, as botany to horticulture, as
animal sensation to motion. [12]
From all this it is apparent that ethics has dogmatics necessarily as
its presupposition--that it is the second and not the first. Ethics is
faith as having become a subjective life-power--faith in so far as it
is an operative force, The popular instruction in the Scriptures
implies, throughout, this relative position of dogmatics and ethics, in
that it presents the moral command after the subject-matter of faith,
and bases it thereon; thus already in the Mosaic legislation (Exod. xx,
2, sqq.), and thus again in most of the New Testament epistles. (Comp.
also Matt. vii, 21, 24, sqq.; John xiii, 17; xv, 1, sqq.; 1 Cor. xiii,
2; Col. i, 4-10; 2 Tim. iii, 14, sqq.; Titus i, 1; James i, 22, sqq.;
ii, 14, sqq.; 1 John ii, 4.)
Deviating entirely from this view, Rothe places ethics in a wholly
different field from dogmatics. In his view ethics belongs to
speculative, and dogmatics to historical, theology; they do not stand
along-side of each other, do not run parallel to each other, but belong
to entirely different forms of theology. The difference of the two
sciences lies not in their respective objects, for these objects are in
fact essentially the same, but in the manner of their scientific
treatment. Dogmatics is the science of dogmas, that is, of the
ecclesiastically-authorized articles of faith, and hence has an
empirically-given historical object, and is therefore essentially
historical, and not at all speculative; speculative theology is, on the
contrary, the presupposition of dogmatics. But ethics has nothing
whatever to do with ecclesiastical doctrines, but must be treated
purely speculatively, and is, as a speculative science, a
presupposition of dogmatics. The theology of the evangelical Church has
had from the very beginning, in the introduction of moral theology, no
intention of creating a second science along-side of dogmatics, but has
tended, though without being clearly conscious of it, toward a
speculative theology; and this science would necessarily lead out
beyond the hitherto-observed ecclesiastical rut--would progressively
metamorphose the dogmas. [13] This view, constituting one of the many
eccentricities of the Rothean theology, is utterly without sufficient
ground. It is entirely arbitrary to place speculative theology
along-side of dogmatics, and to declare ethics as belonging exclusively
to the former. Both sciences admit of being treated purely
theologically or purely speculatively, though indeed all their contents
cannot be embraced speculatively; and with the same right whereby the
speculative doctrine of God and of the world is excluded from
dogmatics, may also the speculative portions of ethics be excluded from
this science, and ethics be, then, declared as a purely empirical
science. A large portion of ethics proper lies without the scope of a
purely speculative treatment, as is in fact sufficiently evinced by the
third part of Rothe's ethics. It may indeed be questioned whether
speculation is admissible at all in theology; if it is, however, once
admitted, then it is quite as much in place in dogmatics as in
ethics--as indeed not an insignificant portion of the Rothean ethics is
nothing other than speculative dogmatics; and there is no manner of
justification for degrading dogmatics, as in contrast to the historical
development of the science, into a merely dogmatico-historical
statement of the doctrines of the Church. And in that Rothe regards the
dogmatical field as not at all bordering upon the ethical, he obtains
full liberty to extend immeasurably the boundaries of ethics, so that
this science thus receives a compass elsewhere unparalleled, even in
Schleiermacher's philosophical system. Not merely does Rothe preface
his ethics with a thorough presentation of the whole of speculative
theology by way of introduction (in which connection he reaches far
over, and not any too aptly, into the field of natural philosophy), but
also he receives into ethics itself many entirely foreign subjects, e.
g., eschatology. Moreover, also the facts of redemption through Christ
are presupposed in this ethics, as a Christian one, not however as
furnished by dogmatics, but by the immediate religious consciousness.
Under such circumstances it seems more than arbitrary to declare the
scientific presentation of this consciousness, not as the scientific
presupposition, but as a sequence of ethics.
__________________________________________________________________
[12] Comp. Palmer: Moral, 1864, p. 21, sqq.
[13] Ethik, i, 38, sqq. All references to Rothe are to the first
edition of his Ethik.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
II. SCIENTIFIC TREATMENT OF ETHICS.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION IV.
OF the three possible methods of presenting ethics, the empirical, the
philosophical, and the theological, the first and most ancient is to be
regarded as the mere fore-court to the science itself. And
philosophical ethics, as resting upon the inner necessity of rational
thinking, can never, even when it is inspired by a Christian spirit,
entirely assume the place of theological ethics, and displace the
latter as a lower stage of the science; rather can it only be the
scientific presupposition and support of the same, without, however,
taking up into itself its actual collective contents; for theological
ethics bears in its foundation and essence predominantly an historical
character--has for its source the historical revelation, and for its
essential contents the (not philosophically necessary) thoughts of the
actual existence of sin and of the collective history of salvation,
whereof the central point is the historical Christ (who is at the same
time the perfect ideal of the moral), and it treats also of the
circumstances of humanity and of individual man, as having become real
within the scope of Christian history, which also, as the results of
fiee action, are not to be regarded as philosophically necessary.
A merely empirical ethics, furnishing only a series of observations and
rules, as with the Chinese, the Indians, the older Grecian sages, and
also to a large extent inside of the scope of Christian history, is
only a collection of material for scientific ethics, but not ethics
itself. In the sphere of science we have to do only with the antithesis
of philosophical and theological ethics, in the place of which,
however, we may not, as Schleiermacher does, [14] substitute the
antithesis of Christian and philosophical ethics. Over against
Christian ethics stands, not' philosophical, but non-Christian ethics;
also a philosophical ethics may be Christian, and a Christian ethics
philosophical; a believing Christian will in fact never otherwise
philosophize than in a Christian spirit.
The antithesis between philosophical and theological ethics is in
itself simple and clear; for philosophical ethics, only that is valid
which is developed from the per se necessary thought, with inner
necessity; it presents the moral as a pure revelation of reason;
theological ethics, on the contrary, conceives it as a revelation of
faith in the personal God and in the historical Christ--as an
expression of obedience to the revealed will of God; hence between the
two methods of presentation there is in fact not merely an antithesis
of method and source, but also of compass. Theological ethics,
embracing also the sphere of the historical facts of free
will-determination, transcends the limits of philosophical ethics. The
two could only then be perfectly co-extensive when the sphere of moral
freedom should be merged into that of unconditional necessity; that is,
when the rational ground and presupposition of the ethical itself
should be denied.--The ethical thoughts which relate to the realized
free acts of man and of Christ can be treated of in philosophical
ethics only hypothetically, so that philosophy shall apply the results
obtained in the sphere of pure thought to the, not philosophically, but
historico-empirically ascertained conditions; that is, not as pure but,
in some sense, as mixed philosophy. But if also the historical facts of
Christianity are to be taken up into philosophical ethics, as Palmer
assumes, [15] then its difference from theological ethics is at least,
not to be placed in the fact that the latter bases itself upon
Scripture; for indeed philosophy cannot come at these facts otherwise
than from the Scriptures, and is then in fact no longer purely
philosophical.
While purely philosophical ethics can develop only the general moral
ideas, but not their application to definite historically-arisen
relations, on the other hand, a purely theological ethics, as
absolutely excluding all philosophical treatment, is defective, at
least, in scientific respects. Theological ethics can appropriate to
itself philosophy, and it is all the more scientific the more it does
this; but it cannot take philosophy as its exclusive ground and source
without ceasing to be theological. Hence theological ethics is, in
respect to extent of contents and to the means at its disposal, richer
than purely philosophical ethics. The highest perfection of Christian
ethics is a vital union of the philosophical and the theological manner
of treatment, namely, in that the ideas given in the moral reason
itself are treated and speculatively developed as such, and receive
from Christian revelation their religious confirmation; while, on the
other hand, the actual truths lying in the sphere of the free activity
of man himself are taken up from revelation and from historical
experience. Such a presentation of ethics preserves its
Christianly-theological character by the fact that, in view of the
constantly-renewed alternation of philosophical systems, and of their
not unfrequently weighty and essential mutual contradictions, it does
not make the validity of the firmly-established truths of revelation
dependent on their agreement with a particular philosophical system,
but, on the contrary, makes the acceptance of philosophical thoughts
and of their sequences dependent on their harmonizing with the certain
truths of revelation. If this relation is otherwise understood, then it
is in fact no longer a theological, but a philosophical, system.
This antithesis between philosophical and theological ethics is
entirely rejected by Rothe, in that he presents a theological ethics
which is essentially speculative, and in that he definitely
distinguishes theological speculation from philosophical, and requires
of theological ethics that it must, as a science, be also speculative,
whereas dogmatics cannot in the nature of things be such. Every
speculation begins with a proto-datum,--philosophical speculation with
the self-consciousness. But this self-consciousness is not mere
self-consciousness, but is at the same time in some manner a determined
one, is also a God-consciousness; the religious subject recognizes his
self-consciousness not as an absolutely pure one, but as always at the
same time affected by an objective determinateness, namely, the
religious. Man is never otherwise conscious of himself than as being
conscious at the same time also of his relation to God. This point may,
says Rothe, be in itself controverted, but in the sphere of piety, that
is, in the theological sphere, it is not controverted: "we deny to no
one the right to question the reality of piety itself, but with impiety
we have, as a matter of principle, nothing to do; there can be a system
of theology only on the presupposition of piety; for all who are
impious our system of speculation has no validity, and, as related to
them, we must continue in error." According to this, there are two
kinds of speculation, a religious and a philosophical; the latter has
its point of departure in simple self-consciousness, the former in the
pious self-consciousness; philosophical speculation conceives the "All"
through the idea of the ego, theological speculation through the idea
of God, but both are `a priori; hence theological speculation is
theosophy; it begins with the idea of God, with which idea
philosophical speculation ends; the evidence is the same in both.
Speculative theology must be essentially different for every peculiar
form of piety, inasmuch as the starting-point, namely, the
peculiarly-determined pious consciousness, is different. Hence there is
also a peculiarly Christianly-speculative theology, and likewise for
every Church a special one, and hence also a special
evangelico-Christian theology; and this special speculative theology
has in fact validity only for this particular Church--is for the others
without significancy. This theological speculation, however, is not in
any way bound by the dogmas of the Church in which it originates, but
is independent of them--knows itself as co-etaneous with them; nay, it
must in its every nature be heterodox; its purpose is in fact to
develop the consciousness of the Church still further, and to
reconstruct the existing dogmatical definitions. In the circle of
theological sciences speculation occupies the first and highest place.
The difference between theological and philosophical ethics becomes,
now, perfectly plain. Both are speculative; but philosophical ethics
proceeds from the moral consciousness purely as such; whereas
theological ethics proceeds from the same as it exists in the Christian
individual belonging to a particular Christian Church, that is, as a
peculiarly-determined religious consciousness, and from the
historically-given ideal of morality in the person of Christ.
This view appears to us entirely erroneous. We cannot possibly admit
any other than a purely philosophical speculation, at least as of a
scientific character. In the first place it is incorrect, in point of
fact, that philosophical speculation always proceeds from
self-consciousness as in contradistinction to theological speculation,
which is made to proceed from the God-consciousness. Spinoza starts
directly from the idea of God, and his philosophy will surely not be
called a theological speculation; in like manner also Schelling. Hegel
begins with the idea of pure being; and this is certainly also not
identical with self-consciousness.--Theological speculation, Rothe
holds, differs only in its beginning, from philosophical, in that this
beginning is, in it, somewhat more determined and more rich in
contents, namely, as being already a religiously-determined
self-consciousness. This is the view of Schleiermacher, who also
proceeds from the religiously-determined self-consciousness; however,
Schleiermacher does not undertake to base thereon a system of
speculation, but simply a theological description of the pious
conditions of the soul, and to argue toward their presuppositions,
which in fact cannot, in any sense, be called speculation.
Rothe--herein less consequential than Schleiermacher--goes beyond him
in two respects: first, in that he carries the religious
determinateness, the self-consciousness, even into the confessional
phase; and, secondly, in that he undertakes to make this purely
empirical fact the foundation of a system of speculation. The original
self-consciousness upon which Rothe bases speculative theology, and
more specifically ethics, is not merely religiously determined in
general (as, e. g., with Schleiermacher, a feeling of absolute
dependence), but also Christianly-religiously, nay, even
evangelically-Christianly, etc., and only on the basis of such a quite
specific determinedness is, in his view, a theological speculation
possible. This, however, is, properly speaking, not a theological
speculation, but a Christian, a Protestant, a Lutheran, or a Reformed
speculation, and has in fact validity only for this special
ecclesiastical circle; others, belonging to another Church, may
construct their own peculiar speculations-with the speculations of
others they have no concern, nor others with theirs; and yet all this
is assumed to be not merely science, but in fact speculative science.
We can find in it, however, only arbitrary assumption, and can
recognize such products neither as speculative nor as scientific,
neither as Christian nor as evangelical. In the first place, a real
science, and hence above all a true speculation, cannot rest upon a
merely fortuitous ground, but only upon an absolutely certain one. A
speculation which concerns itself not as to whether its starting-point,
its foundation, is certain and true, is manifestly worthless. Now the
pretended theological speculation of Rothe bases itself upon an
entirely fortuitously-determined religious consciousness, without
inquiring as to its legitimacy, and then speculates thereupon
unsuspectingly, further. Again, as the starting-point of this
speculation is of a fortuitously-determined character, hence it can
never have any validity save for the definite and limited circle of
persons who in fact chance to recognize this starting-point,--has, in
fact, no general significancy, as indeed Rothe himself expressly
admits; and hence there is absolutely no possibility of harmony between
the speculative theologians of different Churches; they must simply let
each other alone, and deliver themselves in monologues; and he who
speculates from the Protestant consciousness must renounce all hope
that a Roman Catholic Christian may understand him, and in any degree
enter into his line of thought--for he cannot do so. But this is a
positive contradiction not merely to all speculation, but in fact to
all science; nay, to the very nature of truth in general, and to
morality itself. Truth--and every science claims to be its
expression--can never be particular, but necessarily claims universal
validity; every real science purposes to convince all men who are
rational and at all capable of scientific thought; hence to renounce
all hope of convincing other men, for the reason that they chance to
find themselves otherwise confessionally-determined, would be
positively immoral. No real science in general is at liberty to
construct itself upon a fortuitously-given ba1sis, and to regard other
equally fortuitous bases as equally valid and unassailable. I cannot,
without treason to the truth, speculate evangelically-Christianly
simply because I find myself in my earlier religious self-consciousness
evangelically-Christianly determined, but only for the reason that, for
convincing grounds, I have recognized this evangelically-Christian
consciousness as per se true, as universally valid truth, and which
therefore excludes, as erroneous, every contradictory view. And for the
simple reason that the truth, in its very idea and essence, can and may
lever be merely subjective, but must have objective and universal
validity, and because all men should come to a knowledge of the truth
(1 Tim. ii, 4), I absolutely dare not construct a system of speculation
which, on principle, excludes the hope of persuading other persons of
different confessions, which purlposes to have for such no convincing
power, and does not regard them as called equally with me to recognize
the truth, which as truth must be absolutely valid for them also.
Without a firm and absolutely verified basis there can be no science. A
speculation upon a chance, fortuitous basis is idle play without
purpose and without worth. There would, in fact, be as many
mutually-excluding and equally-entitled speculations as there are such
chance presuppositions; and what would be the significancy of a science
which aims not at convincing those in error, but only at furnishing an
interesting entertainment for the already convinced? If the assumed
foundation is not to be itself an object of a preliminary scientific
examination, then in fact any and every one would be fully entitled to
say: I find myself not merely so or so religiously, but also so or so
morally, determined,--I find in my moral self-consciousness this
particular desire and this particular aversion, and on the basis of
this determinedness I propose to construct a system of speculative
ethics! The distinction between philosophical and theological
speculation in Rothe's sense would in fact be simply the distinction
between science and unscientific arbitrariness. We fully admit that
only a moral spirit can truly speculate upon the moral, and only a
Christianly-pious spirit upon religion; but that a person is moral or
pious is only an individual fact, but not a scientific basis of a
system,--is a moral presupposition, but not a material principle of the
speculation itself; piety is only the subjective condition, the impulse
toward and the power for speculation, but not the scientific foundation
thereof.--The strange contradiction, that this speculation, though
proceeding from a determined ecclesiastical consciousness as the
unassailable and unquestionable basis, yet at the same time claims to
be entitled to pass out beyond the ecclesiastical consciousness, and
even sets up heterodoxy as one of its requirements (a requirement which
Rothe himself meets in a high degree), we need not here further
elucidate.
Rothe presents theological speculation as co-etaneous, along-side of
philosophical. Now, however, if, as he expressly affirms, philosophical
speculation in proceeding in its development necessarily arrives at the
idea of God, and there ends, that is, precisely at the point where
theological speculation begins, then, in fact, speculation may, from
this idea of God as obtained in a purely scientific manner, simply
advance further, so that consequently we now have a theological
speculation resting not upon a fortuitous and empirical presupposition,
but upon a scientific result,--to which the one assumed by Rothe bears
only a relation of premature over-haste. The entire distinction between
theological and philosophical speculation, we must consequently declare
as scientifically unfounded; and we cannot, with Rothe, look upon the
difference between philosophical and theological ethics as the
difference between a speculation without presuppositions and a
speculation with presuppositions, but only as the difference between a
speculative and a non-speculative ethics, or an ethics resting
essentially on history. Purely philosophical ethics knows nothing of
Christ, of redemption, nor even of sin as a reality, and hence cannot
possibly answer the full idea of a Christian ethics, although it may
and should, in that which it is competent to embrace, be of a very
Christian character: and as the entire moral life of the Christian
rests upon redemption and spiritual regeneration, hence there is not a
single point in this life, where at purely philosophical ethics could
suffice. Hence the view of Schleiermacher, that Christian and
philosophical ethics are of exactly of the same compass, we must regard
as incorrect. [16] In his Philosophical Ethics he himself expressly
declares that the notion of evil has no place in it, but is only
obtained from the experience of real life; but in Christian ethics this
notion is an essentially co-determining element of the whole. [17]
Theological and philosophical ethics do not mutually exclude each
other, but stand in intimate connection, and may go hand in hand; we
must admit both of them, each in its own field, and each with the task
of combining the other as much as possible in itself. But for each of
the two manners of treatment, we must lay claim to universal validity.
Whether we have recognized a truth philosophically or theologically, we
regard this much as settled, that it is a truth not merely for us
Protestant or Roman Christians, but for all men who seek truth at all;
and those who do not admit it, we can regard only as in error. This is
not intolerance, but simple fidelity to the truth; every truth is, in
this sense, intolerant,--claims the right to be accepted of all men.
Ethics is frequently so treated that philosophical ethics, as pure,
precedes, and Christian ethics as applied ethics, follows. This is not
correct; Christian ethics is not a mere application of philosophical,
but has, in so far as it rests on history, an essentially other
character, and other ground-thoughts peculiar to itself.--We purpose
here to present a System of Christian ethics, which, for the reason
that it is to embrace all the phases of the Christianly-moral, must be
essentially theological; but in the inner organizing and in the
developing of the ground-thoughts, philosophical considerations must
furnish the deeper scientific foundation.
__________________________________________________________________
[14] Christl. Sitte, p. 24.
[15] Moral, p. 19.
[16] Christ. Sitte, Beil, p. 4.
[17] Ibid., pp. 35, 36.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
III. HISTORY OF ETHICS AND OF THE MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS IN GENERAL.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION V.
CHRISTIAN ethics cannot be understood without its history, nor the
latter without the history of the systems lying anterior to and outside
of Christianity. But the history of ethics presupposes a knowledge of
the historical development of the moral consciousness in general,
whereof ethics proper is simply the scientific fruit.
The mistakes committed in a large portion of the field of more recent
ethics, spring largely from non-attention to the history of this
science; and yet no other theological science has so long and rich a
history, and so many relations to the history of the human mind
anterior to and outside of Christianity, as, in fact, this very one;
Greek philosophy has had, upon the development of Christian ethics, a
wide-reaching influence. But the history of ethics cannot be separated
from the history of the moral spirit in general, out of which ethics
sprang, and of which it is simply the scientific form; also the moral
consciousness itself has a history, the knowledge of which is of much
higher importance than that of the history of mere ethics. Not every
moral consciousness has produced an ethical system, for only the more
gifted nations have risen to science at all, and ethics is one of the
most difficult; but the moral consciousness of a people, even though
not developed into a scientific form, is to be looked upon as the
historical basis for another higher and ultimately scientific national
consciousness. Even as botany considers the germination and foliation
no less than the blossoms and fruit,--as the history of religious
doctrines presupposes the history of the religious life, as the history
of philosophy presupposes and develops further the history of
civilization,--so also the history of ethics cannot be given without,
at the same time, taking into consideration the history of the moral
consciousness itself; the ethical thoughts of Plato and Aristotle are
not to be understood merely from themselves, but largely only in the
light of the moral spirit of the Greeks in general.
The history of ethics itself, though frequently touched upon, has not
as yet' been sufficiently presented. The most complete work is that of
Staeudlin: "History of the Ethics of Jesus," 1799-1823, 4 vols., of
which the work, "History of Christian Morals since the Revival of the
Sciences," which appeared as early as 1808, is to be regarded as a
continuation; and to it is to be added the same author's "History of
Moral Philosophy," 1822 (and, as a short compendium, the "History of
Philosophical, Hebrew, and Christian Ethics," 1816). The rich body of
matter scattered through these works, is much diluted and not always
reliable, and is constructed into no vital unity. The superficial
Rationalistic stand-point precludes a proper understanding whether of
philosophical or of theological ethics. It is stated as a high merit of
the ethics of Jesus, that, in it, are combined the "better elements of
the Platonic and Stoic systems;" the portraiture of the "wise Teacher"
of morals, Jesus, is about as insipid as well possible. Rousseau's
"excellent" moral discussions are lauded to the skies, while Luther is
treated as a person of narrow prejudice; the doctrine of the
inspiration of the Scriptures is repeatedly declared as dangerous to
morality. The "History of Moral Philosophy" and several minor treatises
on the history of special ethical subjects (the oath, marriage, the
conscience) are very superficial and inaccurate.
De Wette wrote a "Christian Ethics," 1819; (more briefly presented in
his "Compendium of Christian Ethics," 1833, in which the history of
ethics constitutes far more than half of the whole book; the first
work, because of the negligent printing, is almost useless for
unprofessional persons, and is very dependent on Staeudlin, even to his
typographical errors, though in particular parts surpassing
him).--(Meiner's "History of Ethics," 1800, utterly worthless.
Marheineke's "History of Christian Ethics," etc., 1806,--only a
fragment.) E. Feuerlein's "Ethics of Christianity in its Historical
Chief-Forms," 1855, furnishes only unequal and often unclear or
inadequate outlines; the same author published a "Philosophical Ethics
in its Historical Chief-Forms," 1856-59. Neander's "History of
Christian Ethics," 1864, enters also upon Greek ethics, though here
from a somewhat antiquated stand-point, and is somewhat ununiform,
breaking off the historical development by an unhappy classification,
and furnishing rather single- points than a connected presentation.
__________________________________________________________________
A.--MORAL CONSCIOUSNESS AND ETHICS OF HEATHEN NATIONS.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION VI.
The most of historical heathen nations have indeed collections of
ethical life-rules, based almost always upon religion, but before the
golden age of Greek philosophy they had no ethics proper.--The
ground-character of all heathen ethical consciousness and of heathen
ethics is, that the starting-point and the goal of the moral is not an
infinite spirit, but either the impersonal nature-entity, or a merely
individually-personal being. The starting-point is not the infinite
God, and the goal is not the perfection of the moral personality in a
kingdom of God as resting upon the moral perfection of the individual
person, and in the communion of the person with the infinite
personality of God, but it is always merely a limited
something,--either a merely earthly civic perfection with the rejection
of a trans-mundane goal (the Chinese), or the giving-up of personal
existence altogether (the Indians), or a merely individual perfection
irrespective of the idea of a kingdom of God embracing the individual
personality as a vital member (the Egyptians, Persians, Greeks, and
Germans).--There is throughout a lack of the knowledge of true moral
freedom; either it is rejected on principle, or it is ascribed only to
a few specially-gifted ones, while the rest of mankind are, as
barbarians, incapable of any moral freedom and perfection. Hence there
is, further, a general lack of a knowledge of humanity as called, in
its totality, to the accomplishing of a moral task. It is uniformly
only one people, or an aristocratic class of a people, that is morally
active; the slave is incapable of true morality. But where humanity
itself is regarded as called to morality--with the Buddhists--there the
moral task is an essentially negating one,--is directed to the
annihilating of personal existence. There is throughout a lack of the
knowledge of the moral depravity of the natural man, and hence of the
necessity of a spiritual new-birth; morality is not so much a struggle,
as rather a simple development. There is indeed a consciousness of
immoral conditions of humanity, yea, of a natural unaptness for the
good; but these conditions are almost always attributed to mere civic
and individual degeneracy, and this unaptness is confined to barbarians
and slaves. And the idea of the highest good is embraced either merely
negatively, or is referred to earthly weal, or is left entirely in
doubt,--at best is sought in merely individual perfection.
The heathen moral consciousness can be understood, evidently, only in
the light of the religious consciousness upon which it always rests.
That, of the majority of heathen nations, we possess only
loosely-connected moral precepts and observations, moral adages and
practical life-rules, but not ethical systems proper, is no obstacle to
our knowledge of their moral consciousness, inasmuch as systems always
bear in fact traces of the subjective character of their authors,
whereas, the popular collections in question, based, for the most part,
on divine authority, are an objective unclouded expression of the
consciousness dominant in a people.
It is the essence of heathenism to possess the idea of God only under
some form of limitation, to conceive of God as a being in some degree
limited; [18] and to this corresponds also the moral consciousness.
Where God is conceived of as an unspiritual nature-being, there
morality bears essentially the character of un-freedom, as it were of
impersonality,--is either a mechanical adapting of self to universal
nature, an absolutely goal-less passive subordinating of self to the
ever-uniform unchangeable order of the world (China), or a
subordinating of the personal human spirit to the divine being
conceived of as nature, with which the free personality is in essential
contradiction (India). Where God, however, is conceived of as a limited
individual spirit, and then consequentially as plurality, there the
personal human spirit stands not in perfect moral dependence upon Him,
but is relatively co-ordinate with Him,--has not God's will as its
unconditional law; the foundation of the moral becomes predominantly
subjective and unsettled; the self-love and the self-seeking pride of
the strong subject appears as the legitimate chief-motive of the moral
life (West-Asia and Europe).
With the prevalence of such views the goal of moral effort, the highest
good, can also be embraced only as a limited something. Among the
naturalistic nations, the Chinese and the Indians, this goal has no
positive contents at all, for the personal spirit as placed under the
dominion of an impersonal nature-power cannot aim to attain to any
thing positive which did not already exist; its goal can only be the
greatest possible self-denial of the personal spirit as over against
nature. In China the moral spirit can attain to nothing which has not
already always existed by nature and hence with necessity; it behooves
not to create a spiritual, moral kingdom, but to uphold the eternal
kingdom of necessarily-determined order as already existing by nature
without any personal act,--to subordinate to, and keep in passive
harmony with, it, one's own worthless individual existence.--In India,
with the Brahmins as well as with the Buddhists, where the
consciousness of the personal spirit has awakened to a much higher
validity, moral effort assumes a truly tragic character, in that the
total, violent contradiction of the personal spirit to the
personality-overwhelming divine nature-entity comes to consciousness.
The ultimate goal of the moral spirit is here not only not a positive
entity, nor indeed even the upholding of an eternally-uniform
world-order, but the passing away of personal existence into the
general indeterminate nature-existence; the highest good is complete
self-annihilation through moral effort.--With the Occidental
Indo-Germanic nations the personal spirit is indeed no longer merged
into the impersonal nature-existence, for the divine is itself
conceived of as personality. But because of the merely limited
individuality of the divine,--which rises to the height of an infinite
personal spirit only in the last results of philosophy, not recognized
by the masses of the people,--the certainty of the moral goal falls
away also. The personal spirit looks not to cease to be, to vanish in
the mechanical whirl-din of the great world-machine, as in China, nor
to melt away into the incomprehensible and ineffable proto-Brahma or
nirvana as in India, on the contrary, it looks to attain to a positive
result, but it finds therefor no assured, firm footing; and, as in this
life the moral hero sinks tragically under the envious disfavor of the
gods or of fate, so also is the lot he has earned in the next world of
an entirely doubtful character; Achilles would fain exchange his lot in
the lower world for the position of a servant upon earth, and Socrates
is not fully confident whether for his philosophical virtue he will
attain to the enjoyment of converse with the great dead. At best,
doubting hope looks only to a merely individual wellbeing, and the idea
of a real kingdom of God, which has its roots in the earthly life of
moral man, and its crown in a transmundane perfection, and of which the
essence is the history of humanity, remains unknown even to the most
highly enlightened heathendom.
The moral freedom of the person is indeed actually denied only by a few
of the more consequential philosophers of India, but yet it is nowhere
recognized in its full truth. With the Chinese, it is smothered under
the weight of all-dictating State-law; with the Brahminic Indians a
radical Pantheism admits only for the less-clearly and less-logically
thinking casses of the masses, a very limited form of freedom; but to
the more educated consciousness all initiatorily-active freedom appears
as illegitimate, as per se sinful, or, more consequentially still, as
mere appearance. Impersonal Brahma is the solely real existence, and
all individuality is but an absolutely dependent, immediate
manifestation-form of this One, utterly devoid of free
self-determination.--The Greek even in the highest philosophy, far
beyond the limits of the national consciousness, concedes free moral
self-determination not to man as man, but only to the free Greek; the
barbarian has only a half-humanity, is utterly incapable of true
virtue, and is not called to free service under the moral idea, but
only to an unfree service under the free Greek. Even Aristotle knows
nothing of a general morality for all men.
One of the most hampering limits of heathen morality, is its total lack
of the idea of humanity. The religion of the Buddhists,--the sole one
which transcends the limits of nationality, and even in many respects
approximates Christian views,--has indeed conceived the thought of
humanity as equally called in all its representatives to truth and
morality, and has sent out missions beyond its national boundaries, but
it has done this only because, religiously and morally, it bears a
predominantly negating character; in the consciousness of the nullity
of all being, fall away also, as null, the limits between nations; but
this morality aims not to build up a spiritual kingdom of moral
reality, but, on the contrary, to liberate the moral spirit from all
reality as being per se null,--even from its own personal existence.
The consciousness of a guiltily-incurred moral depravity of unredeemed
humanity, which gives to Christian morality a so deeply earnest
back-ground, finds in heathendom but faint and even delusory echoes. To
the Chinese all reality is good; the sea of life is mirror-smooth, at
worst, is but superficially disturbed by light waves which the shortest
calm suffices to settle again. To the Indian all existence is equally
good and equally evil,--equally good, in that all reality is the divine
existence itself,--equally evil, in that it is at the same time an
untrue and an illegitimate self-alienation of the solely-existing
Brahma, or, with the Buddhists, an expression of absolute nullity. The
guilt lies not on man, but on God and on existence in general; man
suffers from the untruthfulness of reality, but has not himself
guiltily occasioned it.--The Persian conceives of evil in the world
much more earnestly and with higher moral truthfulness. Humanity is
really morally corrupted, and is so because of a moral guilt, because
of a fall from the good; and man has the task of morally battling
against the evil and for the good. But this fall lies yon-side of human
action and of human guilt,--lies in the sphere of the divine itself.
Not the rational creature, not man, has guiltily fallen, but a god; the
divine is itself hostilely dualistic,--the good god is from the
beginning opposed by the guilty evil one, and the real world-not merely
the moral one, but also nature--is the work of two mutually
morally-opposing divine creative powers. In this--no longer
naturalistic, but moral--dualism there lies a much higher truth than in
the Indian doctrine of unity, according to which the distinction of the
world from God is explained away into a mere appearance, into a
self-deception, either of Brahma, or, and more consequentially, of man;
and man has, in the Persian view, a much higher personal moral task.
But in that this view throws the weight of the guilt from man and upon
the divinity, the moral struggle lacks, after all, its true ground and
truth.--With the Greek even this (in its principal nerve paralyzed)
earnestness of the Persian is thrown into the shade by the, in other
respects, higher theory of an inner harmony of existence. That which in
the Christian world-view is the moral goal, is conceived here as the
essence indestructibly inherent in reality, so that the moral activity
has only to develop the per se essentially faultless germ of the
spiritual essence of man, in order to attain to the highest good. Of a
positive struggle against a potent reality of evil in man, even the
most enlightened philosophers have no consciousness; and whatever
reality of such an evil in existence forces itself upon the sound
feelings and judgment, is sought for, by the intensified
self-complacence of the most highly-cultivated Greeks, not in the moral
essence proper of man, but yon-side of man in the world of the gods,
which world appears itself in the morally better-feeling poets as
morally tarnished, as an object of just censure,--or yon-side of the
god-world in irrationally dominating fate,--or in the extra-Greek world
of mankind, which, as barbarous, is also involved in moral
degradation.--By far the highest view of the moral and of guilt,
appears among the ancient Germanic nations, the world-view of whom was
indeed more fully developed only in Christian times, and not unaffected
by Christian influences.
__________________________________________________________________
[18] See the author's Gesch. d. Heidentums, 1, S: 11 sqq.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION VII.
The obscured and only very partially developed moral consciousness of
savage nations lies outside of the field of history; [19] the more
tender consciousness of the half-civilized nations, especially of the
Peruvians and Mexicans--the former of whom especially developed social
morality to a degree of one-sided maturity, [20] --appears rather as
potent custom than as a clearly self-conscious consciousness. The very
definitely and detailedly developed moral consciousness of the Chinese,
as expressed in numerous and in part sacred-esteemed writings, is
devoid of higher ideas, and is rather merely soberly empirical, purely
political, and directed predominantly only to outward purposes. The
essence of this morality is an effortless conformance to an
eternally-changeless world-order, a remaining in the just
middle-course; there is no consciousness of a forfeited perfection of
the human race, nor of a perfection yet morally to be attained to.
There is pre-supposed the unclouded goodness of human nature, the
entire agreement of the ideal and of reality. There is no call for a
sanctifying of an unholy reality,--there needs only that the individual
existence of man be modeled upon pure human patterns, and conformed to
never entirely erroneous, and always uniform common custom. The bright
point in Chinese morality is obedience, in the family and in the State;
its ground-character is passive persistence in the constantly
homogeneous, goal-less movement of the universe,--a steady pulse-beat
the significance of which lies not in the goal, but in the movement
itself.
The Chinese, whose religious views constitute a barren and tale, but
clear and consequential Naturalism, have special interest for moral
life-rules; the ancient books of their religion, the Kings, which were
collected and digested by Confucius in the sixth century before Christ,
contain in the main simply a very detailed system of morals; so also
nearly all their later religious, philosophical, and historical
writings.
The life of the All bears every-where, even in its spiritual phase, a
nature-character; there is no history with a spiritual goal to be
attained to by moral activity, but only a nature-course with a
constantly uniform character manifesting itself in constant, unvaried
repetition; morality looks not forward, but simply backward to that
which has been and will always remain as it is, and all reformatory
action upon an occasionally somewhat deteriorated present is but a mere
return to, the previous better. Instead of progress the goal of moral
effort is uniformly simply a conserving, or a return to the past. There
is no ideal yet to be reached, but the ideal has already always
existed, and has never suffered but slight becloudings; humanity is
already perfect from the very beginning, without history and without
development; morality never looks to the creating of something which
has not already been,--at best aims only at remedying a slight but
never deeply seated disorder. Good is not that which in the nature of
things ought first to become, but that which already is from the
beginning; the highest good is not a goal and end, but it is that
itself which eternally is; man has and enjoys it as already given from
the start; it is the Paradise into which he is placed by nature
herself, and which he has never really lost,--at the worst, only a few
thorns and thistles have insinuated themselves into it, which however
can only render the Paradisaical life of the "Celestial Kingdom" only a
little more incommodious, for man, but not by any means banish him out
of it, and in fact are very readily to be got rid of. The stream of
world-history flows on of itself without the co-operation of man; man
has simply to yield himself to it, to adapt himself unresistingly to
the eternally-unvarying order of the world, to join himself, as a
passively revolved wheel, into the constantly uniform-moving
clock-work. Hence morality has no high goal, but requires only repose
and order, and a passive submission to the minutely-tutorial civil law
and to the equally valid laws of custom; there is no violent struggle,
but only a quiet persisting and laboring. The highest symbol of
morality is the natural sky, with its eternally-unvarying orderly
revolution. As the real world is the mutual interpenetration of the two
primitive principles, heaven and earth, and the equilibrium and mean
between the two, so consists also morality in the preserving of
equilibrium, in the observing of the just mean; the middle way is
always the best. Hence ethics is by no means rigid and severe,--aims
not at high reality-transcending ideals, is of a mild gentle nature,
sober, practical, temperate, without high inspiration; it requires of
man scarcely any thing which could be difficult to him, or which would
involve much self-denial; he is not required to divest himself of his
natural character, but has only to observe measure in all things. Man,
that is, of course, only the Chinaman, is consequently already
capacitated by nature to fulfill perfectly all the requirements of
morality, and there are in fact also absolutely perfect, sinless men.
Virtue is of easy practice, for it is the natural expression of the
soul-life, and has not to contend against any evil rooted in the heart,
and it meets in fact with no actual hostility to itself in the world;
it awakens not displeasure, but always love, esteem, and honor; for
mankind is in fact generally and, as a whole, good; actual evil is
always a mere exception; the gate is wide, and the way is broad which
leads to life, and many are those who walk upon it.
As being a mere expression of general, natural world-order, morality
stands in direct connection with the course of nature. The observance
of the just mean preserves equilibrium in the All, and every
disturbance of this equilibrium by sin re-echoes through the whole, and
effects, directly, disturbances in nature, especially when the
offending one is the vicegerent of heaven, the emperor,--who is called
by his very office to the presenting of a moral ideal, of a pattern of
virtue. Drought, famine, inundations, pestilence, and the like, are not
so much positively inflicted punishments of a personally-ruling God, as
rather direct natural consequences of the sins of the emperor, and of
the people as imitating him. Instead of an historical connection and an
historical working of sin upon coming generations, as in the Christian
world-theory, there is here a natural connection and a natural working
of sin upon contemporary nature and the contemporary generation. This
naturalistic parallel to the Christian doctrine of inherited sin, has a
deeply earnest significancy. Man in his moral activity has to do not
merely with himself, but with the totality of the universe; by sinning,
he disturbs the order and the harmony of existence in general; every
sin is an outrage against the All, and consequently also against the
highest manifestation thereof, namely, the Middle Kingdom; all sins are
crimes, all are hurtful to the public weal; in the Chinese view nature
suffers by sin; in the Christian, history.
The focus of the moral life is the family; in it manifests itself
directly the divine life,--which consists in the antithesis of the male
or active and of the female or passive, in heaven-force and
earth-material, and in the union of the two. The family life is a
living worship of God, and the family duties are the highest, and have
the unconditional precedence of all others; to the obedience of
children to parents all other obedience must give way. What heaven is
for the world, that the father is for the children, and reverence
toward parents is a religious virtue. Hence marriage is a moral duty
from which no virtuous man can excuse himself; the celibate interrupts
the ranks of the famnily and commits an outrage on his ancestors.
But the full realization of morality appears in the state, which is
simply the all-sidedly developed family. The emperor, as the son and
vicegerent of heaven not governing arbitrarily but by eternally valid
heavenly laws, is the father and teacher of the people,--not merely
protecting right, but also, as a pattern of virtue, guiding and
conserving the morality of the people. In China every thing is the
State, and the State is everything; it is the great ocean into which
all the streams of the spirit-life ultimate, and morality itself stands
absolutely under the guardianship of the State. Not as man, but only as
a citizen of the State and a member of the family, has the Chinaman a
moral life; all morality is accomplished by obedience to the laws of
the State; and between civil and moral law there is no distinction.
__________________________________________________________________
[19] Gesch. des Heident., i, p. 40 sqq., p. 163 sqq.
[20] Ibid., 251 sqq., 303 sqq.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION VIII.
The Indians, the Brahminic as also the Buddhistic, conceived morality,
on the basis of their consequentially developed Pantheism, essentially
negatively. All finite reality, and above all, that of the human
personality, is null, untrue, and illegitimate,--either because, with
the Brahmins, it is only the self-estranged divinity, or because, with
the Buddhists, the essence of all existence in general is nihility;
hence the ground-character of morality is self-denial,
world-renunciation,--a passive endurance instead of creative activity.
The moral goal, the highest good, is not a personal possession, but a
surrendering of personality to the impersonal divine essence or to
nihility. There is no realizing and no shaping of a moral kingdom based
on personality, nor even a preserving of existing reality, but a
dissolving of the same. All reality, in so far as it is a finite
formation, is evil,--not, however, through the guilt of man, but in
virtue of its very essence from the beginning; and there is no other
redemption than its annihilation. But while, in the purely Pantheistic
doctrine of the Brahmins, the thought of the development of the world
out of God recognizes in fact in existence a divine and hence
relatively good substratum, and regards mankind as emanated from God,
as participant in this divine substance in different degrees, according
as they stand at different distances from the divine
proto-fountain,--the distinctions of caste,--on the other hand, the
doctrine of the Buddhists annihilates, together with the divine
proto-Brahma, also these concentric circles around the ungodded
middle-point, and requires equal, absolutely world-renouncing morality
of all men, even irrespective of the limits of nationality, and changes
the positive self-torture, which appears among the Brahmins as the acme
of pious morality, into a quietistic, self-denying patience resting
upon hopeless grief at the nihility of all existence.
The Brahminic Indians have, in their books of law, ancient and rich
collections of moral doctrines. Almost equally esteemed with the Vedas,
and attributed to a divine origin, is the book of the Laws of Manu, the
parts of which belong to very different ages, though the most recent
belong certainly anterior to the fourth century before Christ; the
moral precepts proper are as yet unseparated from the religious and
civil. Also the Vedas and the later philosophical and legal writings
contain much moral matter.
Basing himself, in contrast to the nature-dualism of the Chinese, upon
the unity of the universe as divine, the Brahmin regards the real World
merely as a, neither necessary nor strictly legitimate, but rather mere
dream-like self-alienation of primitive Brahma, which is destined,
after an essentially purposeless continuance, to be absorbed back into
its source. Hence morality has no positive aim, but rather simply looks
to an escaping from individual existence, a dissolving of personality
into the impersonal. The continuance of personality through
metempsychosis is punishment, not reward. Existing reality is not, as
in China, good as such, but, as separate existence, is evil, and is
good only in its general divine substance; only the latter, but not the
former, may be held fast to. The moral subject is not manc as such;
there is in fact no unitary humanity, but only different, narrower or
wider, circles around the divine middle-point, classes of men differing
essentially by nature both spiritually and morally, and of whom the
lowest stand even below many brutes, and are absolutely incapable of
the moral life; to teach to these latter the Vedas or the Laws, is a
crime worthy of the deepest damnation. Only the three highest castes
are capable of a knowledge of the truth, and hence also of morality.
But also with these the moral duties and capacities are very different,
and the Indian speaks not of the moral duties of man, but always only
of the duties of the castes. The vaic,ja's highest good is riches; his
virtue, industrious acquiring; the xatrija's highest good is power, and
his highest virtue, courage; and only the Brahmin is capable of the
highest morality; but this morality directs itself, not transformingly
and productively, upon reality, but only, disdainingly and
renouncingly, away from the same,--not, however, in order to virtualize
a free, self-conscious personality as over against nature, but in order
to merge back the personal spirit, as illegitimate, into the impersonal
essence of the universe. The highest virtue is renunciation, not indeed
merely of sensuous enjoyment, of earthly weal, but of one's own
self-conscious personality; and the acme of this morality is,
consequently, self-annihilation as sought through persistent
self-torture, to the end that Brahma alone may exist. The highest good
of the true man, that is, of the Brahmin, is to become at one with
Brahma, not in the sense of a moral life-communion of the personal
spirit with a personal God, but as a dissolving of the per se
illegitimate personal spirit into the general, the impersonal. That
which is in the present state the sum and substance of all wisdom,
namely, to know that "I am Brahma," attains to full truth by the
dissolving of the ego into Brahma; the goal of morality is, "Brahma
alone is, not I;" and as man, even now, while in deepest
sleep,--wherein he knows nothing of the world and of himself,--is
nearer to divinity than when in his waking hours, so the goal of virtue
is the total falling to sleep of the personal spirit, the exhaling of
the dew-drop that trembles on the lotus-leaf. The holding fast to
personality is the essence of all evil. Nothing can nor should
permanently endure but the divine essence alone, which tolerates
nothing other than itself, and for which all reality of the world is,
at best, only a dream-phantom, a transient hallucination;--even in the
eyes of the deeper instructed of men, the world in general is only a
false imagination of the foolish, and does not really exist at all. The
Chinese aim, in morality, simply to conserve the already-existing; the
higher nations aim at transforming it into a more spiritual reality;
the Indians aim at dissolving it into nonentity. The West-Asiatic
nations see the truth in the future, and long, hopefully, and through
moral effort, for a better reality than is offered by the present; the
Indians look sadly into the present, with indifference into the future,
and with satisfaction only into the past, when as yet nothing else
existed but unitary Brahma, and into that future which simply returns
to the condition of this past. The Chinese work for the present; the
higher nations, for the future; the Indians work not at all, but simply
endure and perish; they aim not at implanting the free moral spirit
into reality, but at tearing it away from the same,--not at
transfiguring reality by the spirit, but at emancipating the spirit
from the same. Indian morality is less a creative working than a
sacrificing, and hence is essentially identical with the practice of
religion, of which the highest phase is self-mortfication--aiming at a
total annihilation of personal existence. The way which the world has
traveled out from primitive Brahma, this way it must travel back again;
nature herself accomplishes this by death; man accomplishes it by
morally-pious self-annihilation. That which is with nature the natural
goal, is with man a moral end. Even as Brahma developed himself out of
his pure transparent unity into the world of plurality, so must man
fold himself back out of his isolated existence again into unity; man,
the highest fruit of mundane existence, must gather himself out of the
dispersion of Brahma in the world, back into unity,--must give up his
separate existence. Man must die away, not indeed to sin, or merely to
sensuousness, but to himself,--must cease to be a real personality,
must renounce every feeling, every volition, every thought, which
contains any thing whatever other than Brahma alone. The fearful
self-tortures of the Indians are not penance for sins, but the highest
virtue-exercises of saints. A vital consciousness of guilt, the Indian
is utterly devoid of; the evil of existence is not his own, is not the
fault of man in general. Whatever is and transpires, is directly
Brahma's act. It is true, evil inheres by nature in all existence, but
it is not to be imputed to man, and there is no other redemption from
the same than the destruction of the finite, even of one's own being.
The entire scope of morality bears a negating character; the truly
knowing one needs not merely not to do any positive works, but he
avoids them from principle, because they belong simply to the realm of
folly.
For man, even in so far as he is an object of the moral activity, the
Indian has no concern; he has a higher love for nature, which stands
nearer related to the nature-divinity, and constitutes the narrowest
circle around the divine center-point. In nature he beholds his mother,
and he loves it reverently as the most direct and most unclouded
revelation of Brahma. The same Indian who can heartlessly see a pariah
famish without so much as stretching out to him a helping hand,
reverently avoids, as a severe sin, the breaking of a grass-blade, or
the swallowing of a gnat; a Brahmin allows himself not, without ground,
to break even an earth-clod.--Marriage and the family-life in general
can only be a transition-stage for the, as yet, morally immature. The
Brahmin who has risen to true knowledge must leave father and mother,
wife and child, and, dead to the world and to himself, live henceforth
only in solitary contemplation of Brahma,--standing for years, in the
forest, upon the same spot, emotionless as a tree-trunk, and seeking or
accepting only the scantiest food; every thing finite must have become
absolutely indifferent to him, until, vegetating on like a plant, and
fading away, he attains to the long-sought death. For society and
politics, only those who belong to the inferior castes can have any
further interest,--for the Brahmin himself these things have no
attraction, and, higher than the warrior-hero and than the
zealously-ruling prince, is he who exchanges a crown for the life of
the hermit.
More remarkable still is the moral consciousness of the Buddhists,
whose world-historical and influential religion--an off-shoot of the
Brahminic--was founded by the Indian prince Sakya-Muni in the sixth
century before Christ,--the sole heathen religion which sent out
missions beyond the national limits,--so that within a few centuries it
extended itself throughout all middle, southern, and eastern Asia, as
far as into Japan. The sacred books of the Buddhists are chiefly of
moral contents, for here religion passes over almost entirely into
morality.
While in Brahminism the ground and essence of all existence is the one
absolutely indeterminate and un-positive proto-Brahma, Buddhism goes a
step further, and declares this indeterminate, empty substratum to be
nonentity itself. All things are sprung of nonentity; hence nonentity
is the contents of all being,--hence all reality is per se null, and
finds its truth only in that it returns to nothing. As the beginning,
so is also the end of all being, and hence also that of man and of his
moral efforts, nonentity. Every thing is vain, in heaven and upon
earth; heaven and earth themselves are vain, and upon the ruins of a
crumbling world sits, eternally enthroned, empty Naught. The moral
element of this atheistical religion lies in the fact that the Buddhist
is really and truly in earnest with the comfortless thought, and,--in
striking contrast to the lustful, pleasure-seeking atheism of modern
times,--presents to man the God-forsaken world as in fact really such,
and forbids to him all enjoyment of the same,--that he has no joy in
it, but makes deep grief at all existence the foundation of all
morality. The Buddhist is fully conscious of what it signifies to place
nature above spirit, to seek God only in nature and in the world in
general. Not being able to rise to the conception of a personal God, he
disdains the impersonal nature-God, and chooses rather to live without
God in the world,--only, however, as one who has no hope at all.
Buddhism in its pure form is a religion of despair, and its ethics
answers to this character, and is essentially different from the
Brahminic. Here no divine proto-Brahma unfolds himself into a world;
and hence the different castes of mankind have no longer any essential
meaning; no one man stands, by nature, nearer to the divinity than
another, but all men are equal; there is no plant-like branching-out of
a divine proto-germ, but only a homogeneous sea of equally-worthless
sand-grains. With the Brahmin moral freedom is essentially trammeled,
and in fact, consequentially regarded, annihilated, by the fact that
Brahma alone works all and in all; but for the Buddhist no such
limitation exists. No divinity forcibly interferes with human action.
Moral effort, however, has no reality, as a highest good, for its goal;
the ultimate goal is annihilation, and this thought is here much more
deeply and sadly embraced than with the Brahmins. While with the
Brahmins, man and the entire world sink back into the divine essence,
with the Buddhists they fall into utter annihilation; and the goal of
all life and effort is a traceless extinguishment--nirvana. The
Buddhist strives not; he only patiently endures the pain of inner
nothingness, that falls to the lot of all living existence. The entire
history of the world is but one grand tragedy; in deep pain worries on
all that lives, until it succumbs to death, and the consciousness of
this pain is the beginning and the end of all wisdom. In comparison
with this acme of all wisdom, namely, the knowledge of the four-fold
misery inherent in the world, that is, birth, old age, disease, and
death, all other questions lose their importance. All reality is vain
and irrational; this is the basis of all morality. Hence, man should
break loose from all love to real existence,--should renounce all
earthly pleasure; the only feeling that beseems the sage is that of
pain and compassion. For a positive moral acting, aiming at the
production of a reality, there is here no place; man strives only to
urge his way out of this world of pain, for misery is the essence of
the world, and all moral wisdom consists in the greatest possible
breaking away from all liking for the same. In the God-void world, man
feels homeless,--finds therein no rest and no satisfaction; his future
is annihilation; his present, the renouncing of all joy. The
world-renunciation of the Brahmin is rather active and manly, for by
the throwing off of his finite existence he returns into Brahma. The
world-renunciation of the Buddhist is rather passive and womanly,--does
not rise to positive self-torture and to real self-destruction; on the
contrary, the Buddhist waits, still and patient,--supports the misery
of life in unmurmuring pain, until his existence falls away; the
characteristic of this world-theory is a quiet, gentle grief, for the
thought of the empty nothingness of all things cannot inspire to manly
action; and the pain of existence should not be additionally heightened
by voluntary act. Man is simply to disdain the world,--not because he
compares it with a better sinless one, but because evil and misery are
inseparable from it. Separated from all the world, and as a homeless
wanderer, or as a hermit in forest or desert, the pious man should live
in beggar-garb, devoid of adornment, utterly possessionless, entirely
isolated, indifferent to joy and grief, and dead to all emotions.
Marriage, as productive of new existence, is per se of evil, and is
absolutely forbidden to the saint; the family bonds have no
significancy for him, and sensuous enjoyment is in his eyes a pure
folly. The most ancient and pure doctrine of Buddhism requires such
renunciation of all men, and it is only a deteriorated form of later
times that conceded that all did not need to lead this spiritual life,
but that a portion of the people might content themselves with an
inferior severity.
Buddhistic ethics contains but few positive precepts; almost all of
them are negative; virtue consists essentially in omitting; "thou shalt
not," is the almost unvarying beginning of the precepts; all of them
aim simply at preventing the spirit from taking delight in
existence,--forbid worldly pleasure, but do not create a moral reality;
and, as relating to other living creatures, beast as well as man, they
guard against all multiplication of the already so widely-prevalent
misery. Hence there goes here, hand in hand, with the intensest
world-despising, the greatest gentleness toward all living beings; no
creature may be tormented, nor even slaughtered; in order to alleviate
the pain of another creature, man should rather himself endure it.
Hence the Buddhists have been, in fact, the gentlest of heathen
nations; but their gentleness is not so much an expression of active
love as rather merely of compassion,--is simply a non-interfering, a
sparing, but not a positive helping. The dumb, patient enduring of
pain, a complete indifference to joy and sorrow, is not the heroic
pride of a deeply self-conscious personality, but the womanly,
submissive patience of a heart broken with pain.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION IX.
The moral consciousness of the Egyptians and of the Semitic nations,
especially of the Assyrians and Babylonians, is, as yet, only very
imperfectly and partially known, so that a very definite characterizing
of it is not yet possible. So much appears to be reliably ascertained,
that among these nations (which constitute the transition from
naturalistic East-Asia to the Occidental nations among whom the divine
is conceived of as a personal spirit) both the moral bases and the
essence of the moral subject and of the moral task, are conceived in a
higher and more spiritual manner than was the case among the earlier
nations,--in a manner which brings personality to a greater validity.
The Pantheistico-naturalistic character of the religious and moral
world-theory is overcome, and a morally dualistic one struggles more
definitely into the fore-ground. Morality passes over from the mere
preserving and persisting of the Chinese, and from the self-renouncing
of the Indians, into a struggle against evil, as super-humanly
originated, though not exclusively dominant, and as in fact ultimately
to be overcome.
Egypt stands on the dividing-line between the naturalistic and the
personally-spiritual world-theory; the divine is indeed primarily and
originally, as yet, a pure nature-power, but it struggles up into
spiritual personality, and such a personality is recognized also in
man; among the Semitic nations this consciousness comes into the
fore-ground more prominently still. The presupposition of the moral is
no longer the perfect and uniform goodness of existence, as with the
Chinese, nor the essential evilness of the same, as with the Indians,
but an inner moral antagonism of existence. Over against the
personal-become good divinities, stands evil as a divine entity
different from them, and which is primarily less spiritual, and
expressive rather of mere nature character; and man in his moral
struggle stands in the -midst of this antagonism,--has to determine
himself for the divine good, and against the not less divine evil.
Thus, in virtue of the contest of the antagonism dominant in the world,
the moral subject becomes more nearly independent and free, than among
the purely naturalistic nations; his moral task becomes, by far, more
earnest and arduous,--calls far more emphatically for personal
self-determination. Hence these nations have produced grander
world-historical characters than the earlier ones,--have become
world-historically militant nations. And the goal of the militant
struggle is the ultimate victory of the good over the evil by the
personal spirit, which is also itself not destined to be dissolved back
into a general impersonal nature-existence, but, triumphing over mere
nature, preserves its own personality.
But this breaking-forth of the rational spirit and of its moral task
into greater distinctness, manifests itself otherwise among the
Egyptians than among the Semitic nations. It is among the Egyptians
that the personal nature of the moral spirit comes first to full
self-consciousness. The spirit is a something other than nature and
higher than it,--is not destined to servitude under it, but to
personal, free moral self-determination and to personal immortality,
over against death-dominated nature. But this antithesis of the moral
personal spirit to nature does not as yet rise, in the earthly life, to
complete victory. Even as Osiris succumbs to the evil divinity, Typhon,
so must man ultimately succumb in the struggle with unspiritual
nature,--only, however, in order to attain in the yon-side to the full
enjoyment of spiritual personality. The morning-twilight of the freedom
of the rational spirit dawns in Egypt, but it is not as yet day. It is
only through struggle, through suffering and dying, that the spirit
becomes free,--in the world of the gods as well as in the world of man.
Osiris becomes a true ruler only in the next world, and so with man
also; only out of death spring forth life and victory. Also over the
Egyptian's moral life a dusky vail is thrown, a melancholy breath
poured out,--as with the Indians, though relieved by a brighter hope.
To the Indian all moral life is but a rapidly passing meteor, vanishing
away without trace; to the Egyptian it is a conflict, painful indeed,
but resulting in an ultimate permanent victory of the moral person. Man
has not as yet complete freedom and complete personal validity, but he
will have them after death if he only struggles manfully here below;
and he is conscious of entire personal responsibility for his life and
his fortune after death. His personally-moral life falls not a prey to
a universally-dominating nature-necessity, but to the personal decision
of the first personal victor (Osiris) over nature and over death. By
Osiris, the king of the yon-side world, where alone true life first
begins, man's moral life is judged--weighed in the scales of
righteousness. In personal communion with Osiris, the just man lives,
happy thenceforth. Osiris, the highest representative of spiritual
divinity, the forerunner and pledge of immortality, the firstborn among
those who have died and are now living after death, is also the highest
representative of Egyptian morality, the ground-character of which is,
a persistent battling for righteousness. The ostrich-feather, the
symbol of truth and righteousness, is one of the highest badges of
honor.--But it is only in the next world that true righteousness is
realized; here upon earth rule as yet, invincibly, the powers of evil.
Hence the Egyptian, in contrast to the Chinese, turns all his love and
his interest to the yon-side life. The dwellings of the living were for
the most part paltry huts; the dwellings of the dead are monuments of
the highest art and of an unparalleled zeal for labor; the tombs hewn
out the rocks, and the pyramids intended for the sepulchers of kings,
belong among the wonders of the ancient world, and bid defiance to the
ravages of time. The present life is, as with the Indians, lightly
esteemed, not, however, because of the nullity of all existence in
general, but because it is contrasted with a higher life, which, as the
highest good, is a richly promising moral goal. Reminders of death
attend the Egyptian wherever he turns, and the mummies and the images
of the dead were an eloquent memento mori even at his most convivial
banquets. "The Egyptians," says Diodorus (i, 51), "regard the time of
this life with very little esteem; the dwellings of life they designate
as inns, but the graves as everlasting mansions."
The heathen Semitic nations, especially the Assyrians and Babylonians,
base themselves, in religion and morality, entirely on the ground of
the subjective spirit, of the individual personality. The general unity
of naturalism they have given up, but. they have not as yet risen to
that of the infinite spirit. The spirit appears only in the
multiplicity of single forms; hence these nations never appear in
history as a unity, but always as a plurality. In religion as well as
in morality there is manifested the reckless independence of the (now,
for the first time, vigorously and mightily self-conscious) subjective
spirit, from any and all unconditional objective authority, whether of
nature or of spirit,--an untamedness and intractableness of the strong
individual will, daring deeds, but also a violent wildness of the
unbent will and of the passions,--a highly excited turmoil-without goal
or purpose. Man, as a personal individual, comes into the fore-ground
as possessed of paramount rights. Morality is devoid of any certain
basis and rule; the strong individual will breaks through all barriers.
It is the era of great heroes, and of great tyrants and
God-despisers,--from Nimrod who began to be a mighty one upon earth, a
mighty hunter before Jehovah (Gen. x, 8), to Nebuchadnezzar, who
daringly exalted himself against God. The moral consciousness, as
bewildered by an over-intense self-consciousness, manifests
predominantly a defiance on the part of this strongly egotistical
subject against all objective power, even against God; cruelty and
coarse sensuousness characterize even the rites of religion, and hence
much more also the moral life. Nineveh and Babylon attained, in
ante-Christian times, to the culminating-point of the godless,
pleasure-seeking, luxurious life. Religion and morality stand here in
the most violent contrast to those of India; the rude, the violent, the
tumultuous tolerates no law, no regulated order.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION X.
TO a higher stand-point, though not to a higher development thereof,
than the earlier nations, rise the merely transitorily world-historical
Persians. The violent dualism of two mutually morally-opposed personal
gods, calls also morality to an earnest moral struggle against
ante-mundane, god-sprung evil; the moral personality comes much more
emphatically into the fore-ground than ever before; the moral task
becomes more difficult, but it has the certain promise of ultimate
victory over evil, not merely in a yon-side life, but within the scope
of history itself. Morality has here, for the first time in heathendom,
a positive goal inside of the field of history, namely, the realizing
of a kingdom of the good upon earth; and the Persians are the sole
heathen people who make a definite prophecy the foundation of their
religiously-moral striving. Hence the essence of Persian morality
consists in a definitely hope-inspired conscious struggle against evil
as potent in the world, as well as in, and upon, man himself, and
which, both in its guilty origin and in its effects, appears Las a not
natural but moral and utterly illegitimate corruption,--in a
progressive purification of man from every thing which springs from
all-invading and all-infecting evil,--in a word, in struggling against
the world of Angramainyus. Man stands forth with his moral will,
legitimated and victorious, over against a potently ruling divinity.
The Persians, whose world-historical significancy proper extends from
Cyrus to Alexander the Great, have not been able within this short
period to develop their religiously-moral consciousness into a
scientifically matured form. The chief source for the same--the
Avesta--is far inferior in contents and development of thought to the
so-rich and deeply-suggestive sacred writings of the Indians; and yet
the moral view, as a whole, is a higher one. The real world, in which
man has morally to work, is here no longer the immediate divine essence
itself, but it has come into existence essentially by a personal,
divine act. The spirit, in its personal reality, is no longer a mere
momentary phenomenon upon the alone-eternal nature-ground, as in China
and India, nor is it fettered and hemmed by nature, as over-potent in
this life, as is the case in Egypt; but it is already the higher
creative power over nature, although not as yet a perfectly free and
omnipotent Creator. Hence the world, in its relation to the moral
spirit, is no longer a foreign and heterogeneous element, but as a
spirit product, is unhostile and even congenial to the spirit; man
begins to feel at home in the world, and hence he places no longer the
goal of his moral striving merely in the yon-side, but he conceives it
as to-be-attained-to within the field of history. This goal of moral
effort is, however, not to be reached by a mere simple, natural
development of man, but by a constant and earnest struggle against
positively extant evil. Evil is no longer, as with the Buddhists and,
in part already, with the Brahmins, the substance of the
world,--inheres not in the essence of existence as inseparable
therefrom, but has in fact become, through the moral fault of the
personal spirit,--is a guilty fall from the originally good. This is a
thought more strongly approximative of the Christian world-theory than
we have as yet met with in our development of the history of the moral
consciousness. Wherever evil is regarded as naturally necessary, there
the vitality of the morally evil is paralyzed; the Chinese entertain
not this view, simply because they conceive of evil in general only
very superficially; the Indians conceive of it far more profoundly and
earnestly, but they recognize not the moral root of the same; the
Persians regard all evil as springing exclusively from personal act.
This act, however, is not an historical one, but a pre-historical one;
not a human act, but a divine one. The unitary divinity per se,
however, cannot do evil, as is attributed to the Indian Brahma, but the
good God, Ahura-Mazda, remains free of all evil; it is another no less
personal god, that by free self-determination, chose the evil and now
thrusts his world into the world of Ahura-Mazda, and is involved in all
real evil whose proto-source he is,--namely, Angra-mainyus, that is,
"the evilly disposed," the author of death, of falsehood, of all
impurity, and of all hurtful creatures,--the spirit which constantly
denies the good.
Although, according to this, man has thrown off the guilt of evil
reality from himself upon the world of the gods, still he conceives of
his moral nature and life-task, in regard to this evil, more highly
than did the earlier nations. Man, as created good by the good god, is
placed, with complete personal freedom, in the midst of the moral
antagonism of the world, and has now actually to accomplish in his own
person the moral task of coming constantly into closer communion with
Ahura-Mazda, and to contend against Angra-mainyus and all his works.
Morality is a struggle, and rests not upon mere natural feelings and
impulses, but upon the distinct consciousness of the holy will of the
good god,--upon the Word expressly revealed to men. By this view,
morality is made to throw off all nature-character, and is placed in
the purely spiritual sphere, and at the same time the subjective
caprice of the Semitic nations is overcome, and, for the moral, an
objective law obtained, a law that is to be received purely
spiritually. The revealed holy Word is the mightiest weapon against
Angra-mainyus.--This moral struggle is a much more vigorous one than in
Egypt, for it is joyously and hopefully conscious of final victory,
even within the sphere of history. The Egyptian regards his god--who is
at the same time his moral example--as defeated for the present world,
and driven to the future world; the Persian feels himself called even
here to a courageous co-militancy with Ahura-Mazda, who persistently
struggles against evil, and does not succumb to it, not even in the
present world. The Persian regards himself as a co-worker with God, and
does not mournfully long for the next world; for his moral effort, he
has a high object, namely, to combat against a god and the evil
creation of that god,--also a high goal, namely, the redemption of a
world from evil,--and also a high confidence in victory, for there will
ultimately come the Rescuer, C,aoschyanc,, that is, the Helper, who
will accomplish the victory. It is not by mere chance that the
Persians--who usually showed themselves hostile to foreign religions,
and especially to all sensuous idolatry--manifested constantly a high
regard for the Jews, in whose higher idea of God they met in fact with
a somewhat related element.
In correspondence to its religious presupposition, Persian morality
bears primarily a negating character, though in a wholly different
manner than among the Indians. While the system of the latter is
directed against existence, and especially against the personal nature
of man, Persian morality on the contrary directs itself, with the most
complete consciousness of the validity of the personality, negatingly
against every thing which belongs to the world of Angra-mainyus.
Self-purification from every thing which stands really, or even merely
symbolically, in relation with evil, death, or corruption,--the killing
of poisonous and hurtful animals, and the like, are not merely moral
requirements, but even acts of worship, and the Avesta gives, on these
points, very precise and detailed directions.
But also the positive phase of the moral life is much more highly
developed in the moral consciousness of the Persians than in that of
the earlier nations. The Persians acquired among their contemporaries
the reputation of high moral earnestness as in contrast to the
luxuriousness of the Semitic nations. They were, in their prime, a very
vivacious and vigorously active people; indolence springs of
Angra-mainyus; labor, especially agriculture, internal improvements,
etc., are required by the good god, and are sacred duties; this is
somewhat as it is in Chinese morality, but from a different reason; the
Chinese labor for the present, the Persians for the future.--The moral
relation to other men is here kindly and noble;. a high esteem for the
personality, in every respect, forms the basis of social virtue.
Honesty, strict truthfulness, and a high feeling of personal honor,
distinguish Persian morality very widely from East-Asiatic. It is a
morality of vigor and manliness.
Where evil is no longer regarded as a merely abstract something, as a
quality of existence in general, but as a concrete guilt reality, not a
mere neutrum, but as borne by personality, there only can the moral
struggle against the same be really earnest. The Chinaman labors
quietly and busily in mechanical persistence; the Indian patiently
endures; the Egyptian mourns, and longs to pass out of this world; the
Shemite riots and enjoys; but the Persian battles with a manfully-moral
earnestness. The defective phase of his moral consciousness is
essentially this, that he throws evil off from himself upon the sphere
of the gods,--that he has not recognized the evil of his own heart.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XI.
The moral consciousness of the Greeks is very different from that of
the Persians; though rising above it, it yet seems to throw the
approximation to the Christian view, that lay in the Persian
consciousness, farther again into the back-ground.. The heathen mind
could not remain stationary at Persian dualism; the Greeks endeavor to
bring about a reconciliation of the antagonism of the universe, by
throwing this antagonism into the past, and by regarding the present as
an expression of the harmony of existence as effected at the very
beginning of history by a victory of the personal spirit over the
nature-powers that opposed it; the dualism of hostile antagonism gives
place to a dualism of love. No evil god and no nature-power hostile to
the personal spirit, offer obstruction to the moral activity. Morality
is not a struggle, but a progressive development of man as lper se good
and pure; by following his own inwardly harmonious nature, by enjoying
the intrinsically beautiful existence of the world, and by exalting
sensuous enjoyment by means of spiritual culture, and by equally
developing all the phases both of his sensuous and of his spiritual
life, man arrives at the harmonious perfection of his personality,--at
the highest goal of moral effort. The beautiful is per se the good; in
enjoying and creating the beautiful, man is moral. The battle is not
against a world of evil that is to be destroyed, nor in championship of
a moral idea that is to be realized; but its end is simply to develop
the full personality of the hero. The Greek battles for the sake of
battling; the battle is even enjoyment, is heroic play. The Greek ideal
is the vigorous, youthful personality,--in the world of gods,--the
youthful Apollo, in the world of heroes, Achilles, until, at the close
of Grecian history, it assumes a world-historical form in Alexander the
Great. But the entire ideal element inheres in the person of the hero;
a permanent moral world-historical reality, the Greeks could not
create; they lacked the positively world-historical purpose;
Alexander's world-conquering deeds aimed at, and were able to effect,
only an exaltation of the person of the hero, and necessarily ended in
anarchy at his death, and the Greeks became an easy prey to that nation
which aimed with iron-persistency at the positive purpose of a unitary
historical reality, and absolutely subordinated the person to the same.
The moral idea is, with the Greeks, more an object of artistic
enjoyment than of moral realization. For the positive basis of the
higher moral life, the family, their moral consciousness is extremely
defective, and the idea of man as man, has not as yet come to
consciousness; only the Hellene, but not the barbarian, is regarded as
a truly moral personality. Slavery is the indispensable foundation of
the free state.
The precedent antagonism of existence, which comes to consciousness in
all heathen religions,--primarily as an antithesis of nature and
spirit, which rises with the Persians to a moral character,--is, with
the Greeks, not indeed entirely overcome (heathenism in fact never
rises beyond it), but in fact reduced to harmony, a harmony, however,
which, as viewed from a Christian stand-point, must be regarded as
delusive. The consciousness of this antagonism comes to expression in
myths concerning ancient combats between the spiritual gods and Titanic
nature-powers; the gods came off victorious, and the present world
expresses the peaceful reconciliation of the earlier antagonisms;
every-where, both in the world of gods and of men, spirit and nature
are in harmonious union; there is nowhere mere spirit, and nowhere mere
nature. What appears as a hostile power over the personal spirit, was
already vanquished anterior to human history; no inimical, evil god
disturbs the beautiful harmony of existence; the Titans have been
thrust into Tartarus. The foundation of Greek morality is therefore joy
in existence,--love as enjoyment; man has not to sacrifice his
existence and his wishes, but only to heighten the former, and to
fulfill the latter, in so far as they express the character of harmony,
of the beautiful; he has not, as with the Indians, to renounce the
world, but on the contrary to enjoy it, as bearing every-where the
stamp of the beautiful, and to remain in genial peace therewith,--has
not, as the Persian, to battle against its reality as permeated with
evil, but simply to pluck from it the fruits of happiness. Greek
morality is the morality of him who is complacently self-satisfied,
without any severe inner struggle.
The Hellene has, in his consciousness of the harmony of existence, on
the one hand a powerful stimulus to virtue; he endeavors to preserve
this harmony, and hence is in general amiable, frank, and honorable; to
a certain degree he shows also magnanimity toward his
enemies,--respects the moral personality; but, on the other hand, he
has in this consciousness also the tendency to make light with the
moral; he believes himself already to have attained to the good, and
not to need to undergo a severe struggle for its possession,--believes
himself to have already, in his natural proclivities, also the right.
Hence he is inclined to take life unseriously; even unnatural lusts
pass for allowed, if they only appear under the form of the beautiful.
The beauty of the manner beautifies the sin, and the worship of
Aphrodite lends to sensuality itself a religious sanction. Greek
effeminacy and luxuriousness--despised only by the Spartans--became
even a by-word among the Romans; and even the dark passions of hate and
revenge found in the Greek consciousness little condemnation; no Greek
took offense at the barbarous mistreatment of the hero Hector. The most
virtuous citizens were not respected, but banished; sycophants were
honored, and the friends of truth hated or killed.
A high sense for beauty raises indeed the moral consciousness to a high
and harmonious conception of moral beauty, and the poets sketch moral
ideals with master-hand; but these ideals are more for esthetic
enjoyment than for moral inmitation. Even morality becomes to the
Hellene a matter of mere spectacle, and in no heathen nation is the
contrast between the ideal and the real life so great, as in that one
which conceived the ideal the highest. For the practical life the
requirements of the moral consciousness were other than for poetry; the
same people which admired female ideals, such as Penelope, Antigone,
and Electra, as presented in song and upon the stage, placed womanhood
and marriage, and the family-life in general, much lower in real life
than did the Chinese or the ancient Germans; and it was not merely in
the censured license of the frivolous world, but also in the moral
views of the most highly cultured, that talented concubines (especially
after the example of Aspasia, notorious for her connection with
Pericles, and also honored by Socrates) stood higher than house-wives
proper, and became the real representatives of female culture, and
ideals of female grace. Sparta, by its legislation, overthrew on
principle the proper life of the family; the penal laws against
bachelors which finally became a necessity, furnish proof, how popular
this anti-family legislation was. [21] Solon found it necessary in the
interest of the State to protect by penal enactments the merest natural
duties of the marriage-state, at least within the bounds of a minimum
requirement; [22] --so great was already in his day the general
disinclination to wedlock, which, though forming the foundation of all
true morality, was regarded in the Golden Age of Greece as little
better than a necessary evil. The bringing about of abortion and the
exposing of new-born children, was a right of parents, which was not
only protected by laws, but even defended by the most esteemed
philosophers. The perverseness not only of frivolous practice, but of
the general moral consciousness, is manifested most strikingly in the
prevalence of unnatural vice, as apologized for even by philosophers
themselves; and the dark picture of St. Paul not merely of Greek
morality itself, but also of the moral consciousness of the Greeks
(Rom. i, 21 sqq.), is perfectly corroborated by historical reality. In
certain efforts of recent date to clarify the Christian world-view by
the help of the "classical" one, these facts ought not to be left out
of sight. The heathen Germans stand in this respect very much higher
than the Greeks.
However fully the moral consciousness of the worth and dignity of the
personality is developed, still the dignity of true manhood is conceded
only to the free Hellenes, who constituted by far the smallest number
of the Greek population. (In Attica at its highest prosperity there
were 400,000 slaves, in Corinth 460,000). The barbarian and the slave
have no right to the full dignity of personality. Freedom without
slavery is, in the eyes of a Greek, an absurdity. The generally
prevalent mild treatment of their slaves was more an expression of
natural kindheartedness, and of personal interest than of conceded
right; the Spartan slave-massacres were the expression of an undisputed
right of the State and of the free citizens; even Plato and Aristotle
are unable to conceive of a State and of political freedom without the
personal unfreedom of slavery. The so-called notion of
"humanitarianism" limits the practice of this virtue to the possessors
of slaves; and the higher the right and the might of the free citizens
are placed, so much the more complete and striking becomes also the
rightlessness of the slaves. That slaves are but domestic animals
possessed of intelligence was a general maxim, recognized even by
philosophers.
Though the reality of the moral consciousness and of the moral life of
the Greek is in many respects far below that of other heathen nations,
still the moral idea that underlies this reality is a higher one. That
which, in the Christian worldview, forms the presupposition of all
truly moral life, namely, the reconciliation of the contradiction and
of the antagonism in the world of reality, the higher right and the
higher power of the personal spirit over unfree nature, this is
recognized by the Greeks, though indeed with heathen perversions, in a
higher manner than is the case among the earlier heathen nations. Only
man as redeemed by the historical redemption-act from the power of his
sinful naturalness, and as now for the first having risen to a truly
free moral personality, is capable, according to the Christian view, of
accomplishing true morality;-- also the Hellene makes the
reconciliation of the antagonism, the actual harmony of human nature
and of existence in general, the presupposition of morality, and
conceives this reconciliation as one that falls indeed before human
history, but yet is accomplished by the free act of the personal
spirit; whereas with the earlier nations (where the consciousness of
the inner antagonism and contradiction is also recognized) the right of
the personal spirit is either rejected, or else thrown for its
realization into the far future, either into the life after death, or
at least toward the close of the world's history. It is true, this
thought of a reconciliation is made possible only by the fact that the
consciousness of moral guilt is kept away from the antagonism that is
to be reconciled, and that this antagonism is conceived rather as of a
primitive cosmical character, and moreover that not man but the
personal gods enter into the sphere thereof, and, battling,
overcome,--so that there is left for man nothing further than the
enjoyable repetition of the same in artistic play; the Olympic games
are a commemoration of the battles of the Titans; and, accordingly, the
entire moral life becomes to the Greek an artistic play;--nevertheless
the ground-thought is still of high significancy,--the thought that
only man as having become free through the reconciliation of the
antagonism of real existence is capable of morality. But that the
carrying-out of this thought is weakened down on all sides, that the
Greek does not in his moral consciousness rise out of his esthetic play
to full earnestness of life, this is in fact simply the heathen
character of this consciousness. And even in the fact that to the
Hellene, morality appears so easy, there lies a presentiment of the
true thought, that to the morally emancipated man the moral law appears
no longer as a yoke or burden, but is, on the contrary, the direct,
unforced, bliss-inspired and blissful life-outgush of sanctified human
nature. To no nation of heathendom does morality become so light a task
as to the Hellenes. The Hellene knows no moral code of laws compelling
the moral subject to obedience, with objective authority; and even the
moralizing philosophers themselves, in striking contrast to the
Chinese, the Indians, and even the Persians, tarry almost exclusively
in the sphere of general thoughts, and give only seldom definite
precepts for the details of life. The moral subject bears the law
within himself, and bows himself under no foreign objective law. And
this is in fact but a heathen perversion of the per se true thought,
that with the spiritually-regenerated the law of God is: written in
their hearts,--that to them his yoke is easy and his burden light. As
the Chinese and Persian consciousness shows some resemblance to that of
the Hebrews, so the Greek consciousness has analogies to the Christian,
especially as the latter is presented by that Apostle who labored among
the Greeks. That with the Greeks the analogical thought rests upon an
untrue foundation, and worked hurtfully in its carrying-out,--that it
led to sinful presumption, and created a morality actually inferior in
many respects to that of the Chinese, the Indians and Persians,--this
evinces not the fallaciousness of the thought per se, but only the
perversity of the natural man, who turns all the truth attainable by
him into the service of sin, and thus confirms the weighty utterance
that only he "whom the Son makes free is free indeed." He who is
inwardly unfree, and yet imagines himself free, is morally in greater
danger than he who is unfree and also knows himself as such. The Greek
appears morally more responsible and more guilty than the other
heathen, because he has a higher knowledge; and the Apostle's moral
sentence upon the heathen [Rom. i, 18 sqq.] falls upon the Greeks with
much greater force. than upon the other heathen.
__________________________________________________________________
[21] Plato: Symp., p. 192.
[22] Plutarch: Solon, c. 20.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XII.
To a philosophical form, [23] the moral consciousness of the Greeks
rose, with some distinctness, for the first, through Socrates; before
him we find little more than a practical morality expressed in
disconnected moral maxims, without further proof or development.
Socrates, who speculated less on metaphysical questions than simply on
the good, not only bases the moral upon philosophical knowledge, but
finds in fact in this knowledge the essence and the highest degree of
the moral. To know is the highest virtue, and out of this virtue follow
directly and with inner necessity all the others; a contradiction
between knowledge and volition is inconceivable; practically, morality
manifests itself in the subordinating of the irrational desires to
rational knowledge, and especially in obedience to civil laws.
Unconscious of the might of evil in the natural man, Socrates conceives
the moral essentially only as measured by a rational calculating of
outward fitness to ends. His significancy for moral philosophy lies in
his calling attention to rational knowledge as the source of the moral,
and to the no longer arbitrarily subjectively-determined good as the
end of rational effort.
The Greeks occupy themselves very early with the nature of the moral;
the most ancient so-called Wise Men are, for the most part, moralists.
It was very long, however, before the Greeks reduced their
isolatedly-presented, and rather empirically-based, moral maxims to any
sort of unity and order. Philosophy proper occupied itself primarily
with purely metaphysical questions, and the moral views expressed were,
with the earlier philosophers, for the most part, a mere supplement of
observations and life-rules but loosely connected with their
speculations proper.
Socrates was the first who, as it was said, called philosophy from
heaven to the sphere of the earth; it is with him essentially moral,
and, from merely metaphysical speculations, he turns away with a
certain displeasure; even in his consideration of the idea of God,
greater prominence is given to the moral phase of the divine activity.
With him the knowledge of the good is the chief end of philosophy; but,
for the simple reason that here ethics springs exclusively from
philosophy, the element of knowledge far outweighs in it the element of
the heart. The ethics of Socrates is a coldly rational calculating; it
has not, as has Christian ethics, an historical basis and
presupposition, but is invented purely `a priori. Man is by nature
thoroughly good,--is, in his freedom, not simply at first as yet
undecided, but he has by nature a decided tendency to the good, just as
reason has a natural affinity for the truth. Evil is by no means to be
explained from mere volition, but only from error. The human
understanding can err, and the act resulting from error is the evil;
without error there would be no evil, and it is absolutely impossible
that man should not also will that which he has recognized as good. It
needs, therefore, only that men be brought to a knowledge of the good,
and then they will also act virtuously. The motive to the moral is not
love, but knowledge; to instruct is to make better; the philosopher is
also the virtuous man, and only the philosopher can practice true
virtue; the ignorant man is also immoral. Self-knowledge--the gnothi
seauton--is the presupposition of all morality,--not, however, in the
sense familiar to Christians, of a knowledge of the heart as inclined
to sin, but only in the sense of a knowledge of the logical nature of
the thinking spirit; in his dialogues, Socrates does not think of
bringing men to a knowledge of their moral guilt,--he simply aims to
convince them as to how little they as yet know. Hence ethics is with
him a one-sided doctrine of knowledge. There is properly-speaking only
one virtue, and this is wisdom, that is, knowledge; and all other
virtues are only different forms of this one virtue. [24]
Practically, wisdom manifests itself mainly in self-mastery, that is,
in governing by knowledge all appetites, dispositions, feelings, and
passions. Man must always remain master of himself,--must in all
circumstances, however different, always act strictly according to his
knowledge and in harmony with himself,--must not let himself be led by
unconscious desires; and, inasmuch as a man's knowledge cannot be taken
from him, anti as the changeable movements of feeling are under the
control of knowledge, hence man has in this faculty of knowledge also
complete happiness, and the wise man is necessarily also happy; and
this happiness depends exclusively on himself. Therein consists the
freedom of the sage.--Knowledge, virtue, and happiness are consequently
not essentially different from each other,--are simply different phases
of the same thing. In that Socrates essentially identifies the good
with knowledge, he raises it above the arbitrary caprice of the
individual subject, seeing that truth is not dependent on the good
pleasure of said subject. Thus the good has a validity independently of
the individual, and all rational men must recognize the same thing as
good. Hence the moral idea has attained to contents of a general and
necessary character; and Socrates recognizes the objective significancy
of the same, in that he ascribes right wisdom to God alone. [25]
These general thoughts form the scientific basis of the subsequent
currents of philosophy. Socrates himself does not rise beyond them and
enter into details. Whenever the question is as to giving to these
general thoughts more definite contents, he refers to the laws of the
State, in the fulfillincg of which man fulfills the requirements of
morality. Hence his morality is merely Greek civic virtue,--has no
higher ideal contents. To obey the laws of the State is the sum of all
duties; a dikaios is the same as a nomimos. To do good to one's
friends, and evil to one's enemies, is a moral requirement, [26] though
indeed to suffer wrong is better than to do it,--the doing of evil to
one's enemies being in fact not a wrong, but a legitimate retaliation.
[27]
In general the tendency of Socrates is toward a dry, prosaic
utilitarianism. His moral views, in so far as they are not idealized by
Plato, are devoid of all ideal enthusiasm. And in his own moral life he
by no means rises beyond ordinary Greek morality; and it required all
the superficiality of modern deistic "illuminism," to undertake to
place Socrates as a moral ideal by the side of Christ. In Plato's
Symposium, Socrates surpasses all the others in drinking, and even
outquaffs the whole company without getting intoxicated himself; and
yet even this Platonic Socrates is already considerably idealized. In
Xenophon. [28] he goes with a friend to a hetaera, who is sitting as a
model for a painter, and instructs her in the art of enticing men. The
manner in which it has been attempted to justify this, is not of the
most happy. If, in such a case, Socrates knows of nothing better than
to indulge in plays of dialectical skill, evidently his judgment of the
matter itself is not very condemnatory. And in other respects his
bearing toward lasciviousness, [29] gives evidence of deep
erroneousness of moral consciousness even in the philosopher himself.
Of moral and family love, Socrates has, so far as our knowledge of him
goes, scarcely a presentiment. When his wife comes, with her child,
into the prison, to take leave of her husband after his condemnation to
death, Socrates simply turns to his friends, and says dryly, "Let some
one, I pray you, take the woman away from here, to her house;" and she
is led out by a slave; and in his last long farewell speech to the
world, Socrates bestows upon wife and children not a single word. For
his virtues, such as they were, he is worthy of praise, but still he
manifestly does not rise above mere Greek virtue.
__________________________________________________________________
[23] Wehrenpfennig: Verschiedenheit d. eth. Princ. b. d. Hellenen,
1856.
[24] Aristotle: Eth. Nic., vi, 13; iii, 6, 7; Eth. Eud., i, 5; vii, 13;
Magn. Mor., i, 1, 9; ii, 6; Xen.: Mem., i, 1, 16; iii, 9, 4, 5; iv, 6,
6; Plato: Lach., p. 194 sqq. Apol., p 26; Diog. L., ii, 31.
[25] Plato: Apol., p. 23.
[26] Xen.: Mem., ii, 6, 35.
[27] Plato: Rep., i, p. 335; Crito, p. 49.
[28] Mem., iii, 11.
[29] Ibid., i, 3, 14, 15.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XIII.
From Socrates there sprang up several mutually-differing schools, the
peculiarity and difference of which lie especially in their ethical
views.--The Cynics (through Antisthenes) develop the doctrine of
Socrates as to the ethical significancy of knowledge, into one-sided
prominence in its practical application. Knowledge works directly the
good; virtue, as resting exclusively on knowledge, is the highest goal
of human life. It manifests itself essentially in the struggle against
irrational desires; desirelessness is the highest virtue.--Over against
the Cynics, the Cyrenaics (through Aristippus) emphasize the other
phase of the wisdom-life, namely, happiness. Happiness is the highest
good, and therefore the highest goal of the moral; virtue is only a
means to this end. And happiness consists in the feeling of pleasure,
in enjoyment. Hence enjoyment is the goal of the moral striving; in it
alone man becomes free, because in it the desires that press and
disturb him come to quiet.
Both of these schools undertake to find an objective ground for the
moral; in fact, however, neither of them finds any thing more than a
strictly subjective one; the Cynics take their starting-point in
subjective knowledge, and in the will as determined thereby; the
Cyrenaics, in feeling. Both schools are equally one-sided developments
of tendencies that existed in germ in Socrates. If knowledge, virtue,
and happiness are essentially the same thing, then it is indifferent
which of these phases is made the starting-point,--whether it be said
that virtue consists in an unconditional obedience to knowledge, or in
the striving after happiness; and hence the Cynic is right when he
asserts, that in following knowledge we need not inquire as to the
sensation of pleasure or displeasure, for true happiness follows from
virtue of necessity; and if sensation should seem to contradict this,
then it is simply to be despised as a false one. The Cyrenaic is
likewise consequential when he asserts, that in following the feeling
of happiness we need not inquire as to philosophical knowledge, for as
happiness follows from virtue of necessity, hence in the feeling of
pleasure we have certain proof that we are practicing virtue, and hence
also that we correctly understand the good.
The Cynics give exclusive predominance to the rational tendency in
Socrates; there is for the good in the widest sense of the word no
other decisive criterion than knowledge. And the knowledge of the good
and the manner of action that rests exclusively upon this knowledge,
are the sole thing which has real worth for man. Only the good in this
sense is beautiful, and only evil is deformed; whatever else is
pleasant for the senses or feelings is entirely worthless; and even all
knowledge that does not relate to the good is useless. True freedom
consists in perfect indifference to whatever lies outside of the
individual spirit. All evil rests upon error,--has its source in false
impressions and ideas, but not at all in the heart. The wise man is, in
virtue of his knowledge, free from all evil.--The independence of the
personal spirit is here most one-sidedly conceived of, as a
contemptuous turning-away from all objective reality,--as an
over-confident trusting in one's (evidently very immature and
fortuitous) subjective knowledge, as a complete self-isolation of the
persistently opinionated subject. Hence there result an absolute
indifference to all outer existence, even to all historical reality and
to social custom, a throwing off of all reverence for the objective
reality of the spirit as developing itself in history. However much of
truth may lie in the ground-thought of Cynicism, still its practical
development on the basis of its defective presuppositions leads almost
necessarily to a caricature,--to an unbridled insolence of the immature
spirit, giving birth to such phenomena as that of Diogenes. There is
manifested in this school the pride of easily-satisfied
self-righteousness, the haughty self-isolation of the subject as
breaking loose from all objective realization of the rational spirit.
The Cyrenaics pushed to its extreme the other phase. A happiness which
I do not feel as pleasure, is none at all. If virtue makes happy, then
I must at once also feel it. Hence that which is truly good, must at
once evince itself as such in the sphere of the sensibilities; and,
conversely, that which impresses me pleasurably must be good, otherwise
there would be another form of happiness than that produced by virtue.
Hence between one pleasure and another there can be no essential moral
difference; consequently the feeling of pleasure or of displeasure is a
perfectly safe guide in the sphere of the moral. Hence the chief point
in practical wisdom is, to procure for one's self the feeling of
pleasure; from this principle the inquiry must first take its start. By
observation, for example, I find that temperateness is a virtue,
because intemperateness occasions suffering. Hence true wisdom as
founded on this basis consists in the rational governing of the measure
of each particular pleasure, and not in the knowledge of any general
principles; such principles, other than the one just given, do not
exist, but each enjoyment is governed by its own particular measure,
which is discovered for the most part simply through experience.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XIV.
Plato gives to Greek ethics a deeply suggestive scientific basis and
form. The world is an expression of the divine ideas, a thing of
beauty. That which answers to the divine idea, namely, the god-like, is
good. Man has the task, in virtue of his rational spirituality, to
realize the good, consciously and with freedom; the essence of virtue
is, pleasure in the good as being the truly beautiful,--love. As
expressing in itself the harmony of the soul; virtue is also the
condition of true happiness; not the direct pleasure-feeling, however,
but rational knowledge, decides as to the good, and such knowledge
works the same directly. Hence virtue is neither indifferent to
pleasure, nor does it consist therein, but it produces it. However, all
virtue, because of the imperfection essentially inherent in existence,
remains ever imperfect in the earthly life; the corporeal nature of man
itself is a hinderance.--Virtue is in its essence unitary, but because
of its relation to the manifold soul-powers and life-manifestations, it
manifests itself fourfoldly, as wisdom, manliness, temperateness, and
justness, of which the first is the fundamental one, and dominates the
others.--Morality, however, is not a something belonging merely to the
individual person, but has its full reality only in the moral
community-life, the State, which rests not so much on the family and on
moral society, as rather constitutes, itself, the exclusive form of the
moral society-life, and in fact itself produces the family and all
other moral forms of communion, out of itself, and dominates them with
unconditional authority. The absolutism of the State swallows up into
itself every right of the moral personality and of the family, and it
is not as man, nor as a member of the family, but solely as citizen,
that the individual is capable of realizing true morality. But also
only an inferior number are capacitated thereto; and therefore these
few who are capable of true wisdom are called, by this very fact, to
the unlimited governing of the others. The moral task is consequently
not a general one for humanity,--is not the same for all, and is in its
full truth not possible for all.
Plato, far surpassing Socrates in spiritual profundity, developed with
creative originality the thoughts which his master had possessed rather
only as mere presentiments, into a scheme of profound speculation, very
different from the popular moralizing of the son of Sophroniscus. His
ethical thoughts, which are not shaped into a rounded system, are
expressed more especially in the following of his works: Protagoras,
Laches, Charmides, Euthyphron, Gorgias, Menon, Philebus, Politicus, and
in his work which presents the realized moral organism, the Republic or
State.
In the thought of the rational spirit, which Plato conceives more
deeply than was ever done before, he obtains a much more solid
foundation for the moral than did the earlier philosophy. The world is
in its essence, not indeed created, but formed by God, the absolute,
rational spirit,--is the most perfect possible expression of his
thoughts, a copy of the divine eternal ideas. The realization of an
idea is the beautiful; hence the cosmos is an object of beauty. [30]
The rational immortal spirit of man--his ideal phase--has the task of
realizing the beautiful, the ideal, and the highest end of human life
is ideality, that is, it is, to become like God; this God-likeness,
which consists in justness and in sincere piety, is the good, and the
highest good is God himself. [31] This thought of God-likeness,
however, Plato does not further develop, nor indeed could he do so,
seeing that the God-idea itself, as embraced from a heathen
stand-point, was too unclear. The idea of the good is here not derived
from the idea of God, but conversely it is undertaken to determine the
idea of God from the idea of the good, as being fundamental and per se
certain. Evidently we have not to do here with the Christian thought of
God-likeness. The thought of a divine command falls back behind the
thought of the idea of the good as innate in reason itself. This mode
of viewing the matter lies in the nature of the case, seeing that in
fact there could be here no question of any other revelation of the
divine will. The good which is conceived merely in a general and rather
indefinite manner as the inner harmony and order or beauty of the soul,
as the untrammeled domination of reason, and hence rather under a
formal than a material aspect, [32] is per se a something divine and
true, and as such to be aspired to; and the individual pleasure-feeling
is not the measure of virtue, nor the good itself. [33] It is true,
virtue alone renders truly happy, that is, works complete inner harmony
of soul, and there is no happiness without virtue, for virtue itself is
simply such a harmony or beauty of soul, [34] and to do wrong is the
greatest of all evils, greater than to suffer wrongs, [35] but
happiness is not one and the same with every chance pleasure-feeling.
[36] It is not this feeling, in its dependence on the accidentalities
of outer circumstances and of the frame-of-mind, but only the idea of
the good, that can be known and truly identified; [37] hence the
pleasure-feeling cannot be the decisive criterion as to the good, and
the good cannot be aspired to merely for the sake of the pleasure. The
knowledge of the idea of the good--which, like the consciousness of any
and of every idea, is not the product of a reflective course of
thought, that is, not derived knowledge, but on the contrary a direct
reason-knowledge, and the highest of all that can be known--is the
foundation and presupposition of virtue; without knowledge there is no
virtue; virtue is not a natural quality of man, but is learned and
appropriated by learning. [38] And the knowledge of the good leads with
inner necessity to the practicing of that which is recognized as good;
evil rests essentially upon error, and is never committed with
consciousness and intentionally; [39] herein Plato perfectly harmonizes
with Socrates. The will has, over against knowledge, no discretion
whatever, but is the direct and necessary expression thereof. The
lower, sensuous desires can indeed withstand reason, but the will of
the spirit itself cannot do so. That also the heart--the spiritual
essence of man himself--may have a natural tendency to evil, Plato has
not the least conscious suspicion. Nevertheless an obscure presentiment
of the entrance of corruption into the universe does find expression in
his notion, that the present enchainment of the spirit to a body is not
an original and normal, but a guiltily-incurred state of things. In
fact, according to Plato, the soul existed as a rational personality
once before in a bodiless state, and only in consequence of a moral
transgression was it joined to a trammeling corporeality, so that it is
now, as it were, fettered in a cell or a dark cavern. [40] Also for
still another reason, the good, though indeed the highest end, is yet
never fully attainable in the earthly life. For inasmuch as the real
world is not solely and purely the work of the absolute God-will, but,
on the contrary, a product of two factors,--whereof the one is the
formless proto-material which is in fact a relative nonentity (me on),
and the other the ideal God-will,--and as the former, because not
posited by God himself, does not perfectly yield to the formative
working of God when impressing his ideas upon it (even as the impress
of a seal never reflects perfectly clearly every feature of the
same),--so the world is not an absolutely perfect one, but only the
best possible one,--is not the pure and mere expression of the rational
spirit, but there lingers in it a never entirely-overcomable irrational
residuum,--an evil lying in the essence of the world itself, which
though not sprung from the fault of moral creatures, is yet the ground
and source of all moral guilt,--a proto-evil. [41] So also is there in
man himself a primitive antagonism never entirely overcomable in the
present life, namely, between reason and the lower animal desires,
which latter should in fact be morally dominated by reason. [42] In
Plato, therefore, there is lacking to the moral consciousness that
joyous confidence which characterizes Christian morality. "Evil can
never be annihilated, for there must always be something over against
the good; it cannot, however, have its seat among the gods, but it
inheres in mortal nature; therefore man should strive as soon as
possible to flee hence and to escape thither." [43] "True philosophers
are minded to strive after nothing other than to decease and be dead,
seeing that, so long as we still have the body, and our soul is united
with this evil [the body], we can never attain to that whereafter we
aspire;" [44] and they lay not violent hands upon themselves simply
because they are placed by God in this life as upon a watch, which they
are not at liberty to abandon at will. [45]
Hence morality consists primarily in this, that man turns himself to
the ideal, the spiritual, and away from the merely sensuous. This is,
however, only one phase of morality, the ideal; the other phase is the
real one. Even as God, in impressing his ideas upon matter, shaped the
world into an object of beauty, so must also man actively merge and
imprint himself into the actual world-existence, and shape it into
beauty. Hence virtuousness is delight in the beautiful. And the
beautiful is harmony, not merely sensuous but also spiritual. The
essence of virtue is, as this delight in the beautiful, love, or
eros,--a thought that is developed by Plato with very great emphasis
(especially in his Phaedrus, Lysis, and Symposium). This is, however,
by no means the Christian idea of love--that love in which man knows
himself at one with another in virtue of communion with God,--but it is
a love to the manifestation, to the beautiful. Not the divine per se is
loved, but the concrete, and even essentially sensuous manifestation.
It is not a love of soul to soul, but one that clings to the sensuous
form. Hence it has in Plato's state no significancy for the family. It
is true, eros exalts itself from the sensuous to the spiritual, to
soul-beauty; [46] the sensuous element, however, remains the basis, and
does not receive its worth simply from the spiritual. The beautiful is
per se, and in all of its manifestations, a revelation of the divine,
and the divine is accessible to us only under the form of the
beautiful; where beauty is, there is also the divine. This is the
characteristically Greek stand-point; beauty and grace excuse all sin;
even the frivolous is recognized as good, provided it is only
beautiful. The recognition of love under every form, even under that of
unnatural vice, is so characteristic of the Greek, that even Plato
attempts a philosophical justification thereof, which is far from
complimentary to Greek ethics. [47] In love, here, predominates by no
means self-denial, as is the case, with Christian love, but simply
pleasure; I love another not for his sake, but for my own sake. This
love knows nothing of a self-sacrificing suffering, but only a
self-enjoying, at farthest only a suffering of longing and jealousy. It
is true, mere sensuous love as directed to merely fleshly enjoyment, is
blamed; [48] but where a higher spiritual love, not merely to the body
but also to the soul, exists, and in the beautiful the divine element
is recognized, there sensuous love, even when it assumes the form of a
misuse of sex, finds its justification, and becomes a virtue, and even
a religious enthusiasm. [49] "Beautifully enacted, it is beautiful;
otherwise, however, shameful." [50] The very circumstance that Plato
speaks so repeatedly and so extensively and with visible approval of
this absolutely vicious love [Rom. i, 27], while at the same time he
scarcely touches upon the morally close-related mere sexual love, and,
in his long discourses on eros, honors wedlock love with not a single
word, and further that he attempts to repress [51] the feeling that
instinctively impresses itself upon him, that there is something
shameful therein, by the help of strangely ingenious turns of thought
and disguises and enthusiastically poetical expressions, which cannot
but make upon the modern reader a truly distressful impression,--all
this is a notable and significant index of the moral bewilderment of
the Greek spirit.
Plato's development of the idea of the moral is as follows: Virtue, as
essentially constituting a unity, appears primarily as wisdom, sophia,
consisting in a knowledge of the truth and of the good; upon wisdom as
the chief virtue, depend all the other virtues. Now, in that wisdom
brings to the consciousness what really is, and what is not, to be
feared in our moral efforts and in our struggle against hostile powers,
it develops our natural zeal in acting into the virtue of manliness or
courage, andreia. And in that it teaches us what is the inner harmony
of the soul, and what is the proper subordination of sensuous and
irrational desires to reason, it develops the virtue of temperateness
or prudence, sophrosune, which preserves the right inner order of the
soul through the domination of reason over all lower life-forces and
pleasure-desires; these lower desires are not crushed out, but simply
kept within proper limits, and placed in the service of reason. In that
wisdom guides to outward activity the harmony of the inner soul-life in
its relation to other men, it develops the virtue of justness, which
preserves harmony with and among men, in that it respects the rights of
each individual; it presupposes the' other three virtues, and indeed
gives them their proper force and significancy. [52] To justness
belongs also piety or holiness, hosiotes, which preserves man in his
proper relation to the gods;--Plato uses here, constantly, the plural.
[53] A more full development of the virtues Plato has not given; and
the necessity of precisely the four ones actually given is based more
on the nature of the State than on that of the moral person. A special
treatise on duties is not given; and, in consideration of the notion
that an inwardly harmonious and hence virtuous soul finds, of itself,
the proper course in each particular conjuncture, [54] such a treatise
appears indeed as superfluous. That morality is not conceived of as of
a merely individual character, but, on the contrary, as realizing
itself essentially in moral communion, is a great advance of the moral
consciousness; but in that this thought is carried out in the most
rigid one-sidedness, and, as it were, with a theoretical
passionateness, and in that it lacks the proper historical and
religious bases, Plato has arrived, in his enthusiastically and
persistently pursued ideal of a State, at a positive caricature, which
has brought upon the great philosopher, in the eyes of those who look
upon the real world with practical sobriety, the appearance of
ridiculousness, or at least the reproach of an utterly unpractical
theorizing; [55] and it has often been undertaken to rescue the
reputation of the great man by simply holding his state-theory as a
mere ideal not in the least designed for realization. But both this
reproach, and also this attempt at vindicating his honor, do injustice
to the philosopher. Unquestionably his work on the State is the most
mature and the most fully perfected of his writings,--one upon which he
wrought with the highest and most enthusiastic preference. (His work on
the Laws has greater reference to the real world, which as yet was very
different from his ideal State, and expresses rather a preliminary
expedient, until the true state finds a bold creator.) That his ideal
of a state was not intended by him for realization, has no good
evidence in its favor, and is on the whole incredible; on the contrary,
it cannot be doubted but that Plato made repeated attempts, and with
well-grounded hopes, at realizing his state-theory by the help of
Dionysius the Younger in Syracuse; [56] and his own declarations as to
the practicability of his state-theory confirm this. [57] From our own
social views these theories differ very widely, it is true; but to a
Greek, and especially to the state-institutions of the Doric tribes,
which were regarded by Plato with great admiration, they were by no
means foreign, and they have already in the laws of Sparta an actual
prototype in very essential points. Precisely in its contrasts to the
Christian view of moral communion, to the idea of the Christian Church
and of the Christian state, the Platonic state is very instructive. Not
individual man, but the state, is the moral person proper, by which all
the morality of the individuals is conditioned, produced, and
sustained.
Not the moral individual persons make the state, but the state makes
the moral persons. Without the state, and outside of it, there is no
morality proper, but only unculture. Hence the task of the state is to
make its citizens into morally good persons,--to undertake the cure of
souls. [58] The state,--which in its inner constitution as a harmonious
moral organism, answers to the three phases of the soul-life of man,
and represents (1) reason or thought and knowledge, and (2) courage or
zeal, thumos, and (3) sensuousness, in the three classes of society,
namely, (1) the savans, who therefore rule, (2) the warriors, and (3)
the producers, that is, the instructing, the protecting, and the
providing classes, [59] --realizes inner harmony, and hence at the same
time justness and happiness, in that it does not permit each individual
to act and work at his personal discretion, and to select his own
life-calling, but on the contrary in that it assigns to each his
special and appropriate position in the whole,--a position which the
individual must unquestioningly accept and fulfill, without
intermeddling in any manner in any other form of activity. A rigorous
separation of ranks and of professions by the state itself, is the
unconditional presupposition of a healthy state-life. The rulers have
the task of assigning the individuals to the particular classes,
according to their capabilities. [60] The productive class, which
corresponds to sensuous desire, has as its special virtue,
temperateness or modesty, which it realizes by keeping itself within
its proper bounds. Courage and wisdom belong to the two higher classes;
these two are the gold and silver, while the productive class is but
ignoble brass. The producer is not to concern himself with state
matters, but simply to attend to handicraft and agriculture. [61]
Slavery is presupposed as a mere matter of course; however, where
practicable, only non-Greeks are to be sold as slaves. [62]
The rulers have wisdom as their essential virtue; there can never be in
the state but a few of them, and it is best when there is but one, and
this one a philosopher. The good of the whole requires the exclusive
dominion of the best,--an absolute aristocracy or a monarchy. [63] And
as wisdom can find the right course in each particular case, whereas
laws must always be merely general, and often do not apply to
particular conjunctures, hence the power of those who rule should not
be cramped by many laws, but must have scope for free movement, and
must decide in each particular case with entire discretion; and the
wise ruler will often, without law and against the will of the
citizens, and hence with force, realize the weal of the state, and
force the citizens to let themselves be made happy. [64]
The truly free personality is conceded accordingly only to the sage,
who is at the same time the ruler; all the other citizens of the state
are, in their entire life, absolutely subject to the state, the
spiritual essence of which finds its expression not so much in abstract
law as in the perfected personality of the ruling sage. Though the
members of the third class are left more free, still this is done only
out of contempt; "even if shoe-cobblers are bad, still they bring
little danger to the state." [65] The true citizen, the one possessing
the virtue of wisdom and manliness, is under the absolute guidance of
the state; the absolutism of the state is without limitation. The two
higher classes, as the proper and complete representatives of the
spiritual essence of the state, the sentinels of the same, are reared
and educated, and determined in their collective life by the state. In
their education first importance is given to music and gymnastics, in
order that they may learn to love and practice harmony; the education
of the future rulers--who can become rulers only at the age of fifty
years, after having passed the test of severe trials--requires,
additionally, special acquaintance with mathematics and philosophy.
[66] To any other religious culture than that given by philosophy,
Plato, who clearly saw the worthlessness of the popular religion, could
not refer. [67]
The state as including in itself and guiding all morality, and as
realizing justness, has all and every right; the individual citizen of
the state has rights only in so far as the state concedes them to him;
even to his life he has no right, so soon as he is no longer capable of
benefiting the state; the physicians are charged with the duty of
letting the incurably sick perish without help. [68] The state alone is
entitled to property; private property is not to be allowed. The
producing class labors not for itself, but solely for the state. [69]
With this principle Plato supposes himself to have quenched at once all
the sources of contention and disquiet. Even the act of poesy stands
under the rigid censorship of the state; and dramatic poetry is not to
be tolerated at all. [70] The appropriate meters to be used in poetry
are carefully prescribed, and of musical instruments only the cithara
and the lyre are allowed. [71]
The family is not the foundation, but only a branch of the state, and
merges itself into it. Personality has here no right of its own. No one
consort belongs to the other, but both belong exclusively to the state.
Wedlock proper is consequently inadmissible, on the contrary the
citizen is obligated to the begetting of children in the interest of
the state; in this connection personal love to the sex has no validity,
but only civic duty. The citizen is not permitted to choose for himself
the wife (who is conceded to him only temporarily), but the state gives
her to him,--ostensibly by lot, but in reality the rulers are to "make
use of falsehood and deception," and cunningly to guide the lot
according to their own judgment, so as always to bring together the
most suitable pairs. Men are under obligation to beget from their
thirtieth to their fifty-fifth year; women to bear from their twentieth
to their fortieth year. This of itself implies that there is to be no
permanent marriage relation; on the contrary a change of wives is
expressly required; no one is permitted to regard any woman as his own
exclusive possession. [72] It is laid down as a principle for the free
and active citizens proper, "that all the women should be in common to
all the men, and that no woman should live solely with one man, and
that also the children are to be in common, so that no father shall
know the child begotten by him, and no child its own father." [73]
Hence the children are, immediately after their birth, to be taken away
from their mothers, and to be reared in common on the part of the
state, and the greatest possible care is to be taken that the mother
shall never again recognize her child. The children are nursed by the
women in common and interchangeably; feeble and physically imperfect
children are to be exposed. [74] After the lapse of the determined
period of life, the procreation with the persons specifically assigned
by the state, and as having taken place at the order of the state, is
to cease, and, from this time on, both the men and the women may form
temporary connections with each other on the principle of elective
affinity, with the one proviso that births must be prevented, or, where
this cannot be done, the child must be left to perish without food.
[75] --The woman is not a family-mother, but only a state-citizen, and
she has political duties, in real and even magisterial state-offices,
to fulfill. The women must perform the same work as the men,--must even
take part, entirely nude, in the gymnastic exercises,--must march out
in war, though in battle they are to occupy only the rear-ranks; for
indeed between men and women there is no other difference than simply
that the former beget, and the latter bear, and that the former are
stronger than the latter. [76]
This family-undermining absolutism of the state has to do, however,
only with the first two classes, while the producing class are less
affected by this care of the state for them, and may act with greater
freedom. The great task toward which all moral community-life is
directed, namely, to realize the idea of the body politic, by means of
the moral freedom of the individual, Plato was unable to accomplish
otherwise than by an unconditional and unquestioning non-permission of
the free personal self-determination of the individual. Objective
morality entirely swallows up the subjective. This is, however, not
peculiar to the view of Plato, but is the Greek tendency in general.
Plato manifests rather a decided progress toward the development of the
free moral personality. While in the legislation of Sparta, somewhat as
in that of the Chinese, the impersonal law held ruthless domination,
and disallowed of the personal self-determination of the individual in
very essential things, and while in the democracy of Athens the
irrational caprice of the masses was the predominant power over the
individual, in the Platonic state the personal spirit of the wisely
taught and tested regent attains to domination. From the stand-point of
heathen antiquity, which knows of no right of the person over against
the state, but concedes the absolute right of the state over the
individual, this is a progress; and that which appears therein as
unnatural and as a harsh one-sidedness indicates not so much the
untruthfulness of the consequential progress, as rather the
untruthfulness of the fundamental view common to all the Greeks.
That the spirit of wisdom and power can be and is to be poured out upon
all flesh [Joel iii, 1], and that there is no difference before God,
but that all are equally called to be children of the truth and of
wisdom, this thought is unknown to entire heathendom, and therefore
also to the greatest of heathen philosophers. Of a morality absolutely
valid for all men and without exception, Plato knows nothing; without
slavery, society does not appear to the Greek as possible; but the
slave is not called to, nor capable of, free self-determination, and
hence also not of true morality; and even of the free, only a
relatively small number are accessible to true wisdom and virtue.
Capability and incapability for the good are transmitted through
natural generation from parents to children. [77] The reason for this
dividing of humanity into a minority who represent reason, and into an
irrational, passive multitude who require absolute guidance, lies not
exclusively in the general Greek national consciousness, but also in
the philosophical world-theory of Plato in general. The primitive
dualism of existence manifests itself also in humanity. Even as the
world is not an absolutely pure and perfect expression of the spirit,
and as the rational spirit is not an absolute power, but has simply to
shape a formless proto-material not created by it, and to impress
itself upon it, without however being able entirely to master and
spiritually transfigure it,--so also in humanity the men of the
rational spirit, namely, the philosophers, stand over against the
spiritually dependent and relatively unspiritual multitude, whose
destination it is to be absolutely guided and shaped by the former.
__________________________________________________________________
[30] Especially in his Timaeus.
[31] Rep., pp. 500, 505 sqq., 613 (Steph.); Theaet., 176; Menon, p. 99;
Euthyphron, p. 13.
[32] Gorgias, p. 504 sqq.; Phileb., 64, 65.
[33] Gorgias, p. 495 sqq.; Phaed., p. 237 sqq.
[34] Gorgias, 470 sqq., 504-509; Menon, p. 87 sqq.; Rep., pp. 352, 444,
583, 585; Phil., pp. 40, 64.
[35] Gorgias, pp. 469 sqq., 477, 527.
[36] Phil., p. 11 sqq.; Gorgias, p. 494 sqq.
[37] Gorgias, pp. 464, 500; Menon, p. 87 sqq.
[38] Menon, p. 87 sqq.
[39] Prot., pp. 345, 352 sqq., 358; Menon, p. 95; Gorg., p. 468.
[40] Timaeus, p. 41; Phaedrus, p. 246 sqq.; Rep., p. 514 sqq.
[41] Tim., p. 46 sqq., 54; Polit., 269; Rep., 611 sqq.; Phaedrus, 246
sqq.
[42] Rep., 436 sqq., 589; Gorg., 505.
[43] Theaet., p. 176.
[44] Phaedo, p. 63 sqq.
[45] Ibid., p. 62.
[46] Symp., 209 sqq.
[47] Symp., p. 181 sqq., 216 sqq.; Phaedrus, p. 250 sqq.
[48] Gorg., p. 494; Phaedrus, p. 250; Symp., p. 180 sqq.
[49] Phaedrus, p. 251 sqq.
[50] Symp., p. 183.
[51] Phaedrus, p. 237 sqq.; comp. 230, 242; Symp., p. 183.
[52] Protag., pp. 332, 349; Rep., p. 428 sqq., 442 sqq., 591.
[53] Euthyphron, p. 6 sqq.; Gorg., pp. 507, 522.
[54] Polit., pp. 294, 297.
[55] Made as early as by Aristophanes, and even by Aristotle: Polit.
ii, 1-5, 12.
[56] See K. F. Hermann: Gesch. u. Syst. d. plat. Phil., 1839, i, 67.
[57] Rep., p. 471 sqq.; 499, 502, 540; Legg., 709.
[58] Gorg., p. 464.
[59] Rep., p. 369 sqq., 412 sqq., 435.
[60] Ibid., pp. 412-415.
[61] Polit., p. 289 sqq.; Rep., pp. 374, 397.
[62] Rep., p. 469.
[63] Polit., p. 292 sqq., 297; Rep., pp. 473, 540.
[64] Polit., pp. 293-296; Rep., pp. 473, 540.
[65] Ibid., p. 421.
[66] Ibid., p. 402 sqq., 424, 519 sqq., 535.
[67] Ibid., p. 386 sqq.
[68] Ibid., p. 405 sqq., 409.
[69] Ibid., pp. 416, 464.
[70] Ibid., p. 391 sqq., 568.
[71] Rep., pp. 398, 399.
[72] Ibid., 449 sqq.
[73] Ibid, 457.
[74] Ibid.. 457 sqq.
[75] Rep., 461.
[76] Ibid., 451 sqq., 471, 540.
[77] Rep., 459 sqq., 546.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XV.
The essential advance of the ethical view of Plato beyond earlier
theories consists in this, that he emancipated the idea of the good
from all dependence oil the individual pleasure-feeling, that he
conceived it as unconditionally valid and lying in God himself, and
that consequently he regarded morality as God-likeness, as an image of
God in man, and hence as a phase of the spiritual life constituting an
essential part of rationality itself, and that in consequence thereof
he conceived morality as a per se perfectly unitary life, and reduced
the plurality of moral forms of action to a single principle, namely
wisdom.--But the characteristically heathen dualism, which (though
reduced by him to its minimum) is yet not entirely overcome, rendered
it impossible for him to rise to the full freedom of the personal
spirit in God and in man, and hence to the full knowledge of the moral
idea. The real personality is recognized neither in its rights and
power; nor in its guilt. There remains in all existence, even in the
most highly developed moral life, a never entirely overcomable residuum
of an unfree, unspiritual, and morally spirit-trammeling matter, over
which God himself is not absolutely master. But the limitation of the
moral lies not in the guilt of the personal spirit, but in the
unspiritual (and not by it entirely controllable) nature-ground of
things. The possibility, and therefore also the requirements, of the
moral are different for the different classes of men, but even the most
free is not entirely free. The moral freedom of the freest, namely, the
philosophers, is trammeled by the fetters of a corporeality not in
harmony with the moral task, that of the rest of men by lack of
knowledge and of moral capacity, and that of the free Greek citizens,
additionally, by the power of the rulers as extending beyond the
expressed laws, and that of the unfree Greek citizens, still
additionally, by the weight of the entire mass that presses upon them
from above. From this progressively and descendingly increasing
unfreedom there is no redemption within the sphere of historical
reality, but only yon-side of history, through death.--Morality bears,
neither in its progressive realization nor in its guilty perversion,
the character of historicalness,--is in no respect a power essentially
modificatory of universal history, and consciously aiming at such
modification as its end; and even the ideal state is and remains simply
the very limited activity-sphere of a special moral virtuosity of the
governing individual spirit, without a higher world-historical purpose
in relation to the totality of humanity.--Also the moral consciousness
itself rises not entirely above the character of the merely individual;
the connection of the same with the God-consciousness is only of a
loose character,--is not really based in the same.
The gain accruing to moral knowledge through the labors of Plato is not
to be lightly estimated. Light and order are given to the previously
dark and confused mass. There is henceforth no more question of merely
isolated and not deeper-grounded moral rules, but morality has acquired
a firmer basis,--has come here for the first to serious
self-examination. In fact, Plato occupies himself so predominantly with
the foundation-]laying thoughts that he does not reach the task of
carrying out a special doctrine of virtue or duty. In these
ground-thoughts there are, in so far as is possible from a heathen
stand-point, some approximations to a Christianly-moral consciousness;
and they would have been more marked still, had the philosopher only
succeeded in severing the chain which still held the already floating
ship fast anchored to the soil of naturalism, namely, by overcoming the
thought of an unspiritual proto-material as offering a hinderance to
the personal God,--in a word, had he succeeded in changing the me on
which lies at the basis of the real world, into an ouk on. But neither
Plato nor the heathen spirit in general was able to do this. Even
Aristotle was able only silently to vail the, also to him, troublesome
thought of dualism, but not scientifically to master it. But wherever
the rational spirit is not absolutely the ground and life of every
thing, there also the full idea of morality is not possible; for only
the thought of the complete mastery of the spirit over every thing
unspiritual, and the confidence of untrammeled liberty, assure to
morality foundation-ground and courage.
Though in the recognition of the limits of freedom there lies an
approximation to the Christian thought of the natural depravity of the
human race, yet there lies in it, on the other hand, also an all the
greater departure from the same; for these limits are not placed in the
sphere of moral guilt, and hence of moral freedom, but yon-side of
morality in the sphere of a nature-substratum not to be overcome by the
moral spirit. The hampering of morality has not sprung from an
historical act, and hence is not to be overcome by an historical act.
The consciousness of the moral imperfection of the world, which despite
all the idealism of the Platonic world-view comes often to painful
expression, leads not to the thought of a needed redemption. The sage
emancipates himself, so far as, in view of the imperfection inherent in
the essence of all existence, it is possible, from the limitations of
his moral life, and he emancipates others only through philosophical
instruction and through absolutistic state-guidance, but not through a
sanctifying communion-grounding historical act.
In the idea of the state there lies indeed the presentiment,
that-morality, in its true character, is not a merely individual
quality, but, on the contrary, has an historical significancy and task,
but Plato does not rise beyond the mere presentiment; and when he is on
the very point of passing beyond the limits of a merely individual
morality, and into the sphere of an historical one, he hesitatingly
checks his step and turns back. His State forms no link in history, and
has no history as its goal. As it is not sprung of history, but only of
the ingenious intellect of a theoretical philosopher, so it is designed
to be nothing other than the platform upon which the geniality of the
individual personality of the philosophic regent may find scope for
itself. Neither people nor ruler are to be the representatives of an
historical idea; on the contrary, the people is only the passive
material for the formative hand of the state-artist, and the ruler only
the executor of a philosophic theory. The state itself is to be only an
individual organism along-side of many other state-organisms, likewise
ruled by individual geniality. Hence it must also be only very small;
even a thousand citizens suffice. The thought of regarding the state as
a vital member in an historical collective organism, lies very far from
Plato. Hence, though his state is a moral organic system, yet it has
no, world-historical character; it has neither behind it an historical
presupposition, nor before itself an historical goal. That humanity in
general is a goal of the moral striving, that it may be brought
together into a moral unity, that a state of peace among all nations is
to be aimed at--of all this Plato has not the remotest presentiment;
rather does war appear, even for his ideal state, as in accordance with
order, and as a necessary matter of course; for in fact Greeks and
non-Greeks are enemies by nature. [78] Let this state-ideal of the
profoundest Greek philosopher, as presented without any trammeling from
a resisting real world, be compared with the Old Testament theocratic
state as brought to realization among a stubbornly resisting people,
and which had, from the very beginning, a world-historical goal, and
which kept in view, and had as the basis of its entire organization,
the thought of the salvation, and hence also of the peace and unity, of
entire humanity,--and the result will be very suggestive.
Most manifestly appears the weakness of Platonic ethics in its relation
to the religious consciousness. The beautiful conception of the
God-likeness of the moral man, Plato is not able to carry out; the
founding of the moral upon the divine will is foreign to him, and must
have been so, for the Greek knows nothing of a revelation of this will,
and the philosopher could not invent one; he was only able to refer to
the rational consciousness of man himself; but to raise this
consciousness to a universally-extant and valid one Plato did not
venture to hope, and hence he placed simply the authority and even the
strong dictatorial power of the philosophers, in the stead of the
authority of a divine revelation. Also his profoundly-conceived
God-idea, which far surpassed all previous results of heathenism, Plato
did not venture to carry out in its entire ethical significancy, and to
make it consequentially the basis of the moral. It is true he is far
removed from the folly of certain modern theories, which present
morality as entirely independent of piety; he in fact makes piety a
very essential element of all moral life, and derives even from the
idea of a divine judgment after death, a very potent motive for
morality; [79] still, piety is with him not the foundation of all the
virtues, but only a single one of the same, and that too not the first
one, but only a form of justness; and even such as it is he ventures
not to refer it directly to the philosophically-recognized God-idea,
but only to the gods of the popular religion. But as he himself exposes
the immoral character of the Greek mythology with a noble indignation,
and on that account, bitterly censures the so highly and
universally-revered Homer, nay, even would have his poems, for moral
reasons, banished from his ideal state, [80] it is consequently
difficult to say how he could justify and require piety toward these
gods. There remains here a wide-reaching and unbridged chasm in his
ethical teachings.
__________________________________________________________________
[78] Rep., p. 373, 469 seq.
[79] Gorg., p. 523 sqq.
[80] Rep., p. 377 sqq., 386 sqq., 598 sqq., 605.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XVI.
The completer of the Platonic philosophy, and of Greek philosophy in
general, namely, Aristotle, who in many respects passed independently
beyond Plato, and who was less idealistic than he, and more devoted to
the study of sober reality, presented ethics for the first time as a
special systematically carried-out science,--in connection with Physics
on the one hand, and with Politics on the other. The greatest possible
repression of the dualism of the primitive elements of existence, as
still yet admitted by Plato, leads Aristotle not to a deriving of the
moral idea from his more fully developed God-idea, but to a still more
confident grounding of the same in the rational self-consciousness,
which appears here less clogged than in Plato. A sound psychology
affords for ethics a scientifically firm basis, but the repression of
the Platonic antithesis of the ideal and of reality gives it a morally
feebler character.
Of the three different presentations of Aristotelian ethics, only the
Ethica Nicomacheia (that is, ad Nicomachum) is, in the eyes of the
trustworthy results of criticism, [81] to be regarded as a genuine work
of Aristotle, though probably not prepared by himself for publication,
but only sketched for personal use in his lectures; while the Eudemic
ethics (Eudemia) is very probably a work of Eudemus, a disciple of
Aristotle, and is derived mostly from the first-mentioned work, with
some original additions,--the so-called large ethics (megala) being a
digest from both. In his Politics, which Aristotle separates from
ethics, though as subordinate thereto, morality is contemplated in its
complete realization in the state as the moral community-life. Hence
this work is evidently to be reckoned to his Ethics, and to be regarded
as its carrying-out.
Aristotle gives to ethics its name--which it has ever since borne--and
a scientific form which served as a model for the entire Christian
Middle Ages. His comprehensive Ethica, consisting of ten books,
contains indeed many excellent thoughts, and, above all, gives evidence
of a close observation of reality, and in this respect is by far more
sober and less idealistic than Plato; as a system, however, it is still
very defective, and contains chasms on very essential points. Only
relatively few general thoughts are really scientifically developed; by
far the larger part is treated rather empirically and aphoristically;
Aristotle expressly renounces all attempts at scientific strictness of
demonstration and development, for the reason that, in his view, the
subject does not admit of this, but only of probability. Hence the form
of presentation--in direct contrast to Plato's uniformly spirited and
either scientifically or poetically inspired style,--sinks not
unfrequently to dry common-sense observations, and lingers for the most
part entirely within the sphere of the popular grasp. [82]
Aristotle does not rise to the full idea of the absolute God--an idea
which is attained to only in the thought of creation--but he halts
immediately before reaching it; he pushes, however, still further into
the back-ground the primitive antithesis between God and the not truly
real proto-material of things, which was already very much enfeebled in
Plato, without, however, entirely overcoming it. He is loth to admit a
primitive antithesis of being, but he also fails to pronounce the word
which alone leads beyond it,--the word with which the Old Testament
begins. The world is in his view not merely the best possible one, but
it is the absolutely perfect expression of the will of the rational
spirit. Hence he gets rid also of that notion of Plato, of an evil that
pervades all real existence, and especially humanity. All reality is,
on the contrary, good; also the corporeality of man is no longer an
imprisonment inflicted for a previous guilt, but it is the normal organ
of the soul. And of an historically-originated depravity, Aristotle has
no notion whatever. It is true, the great mass of the populace are so
qualified by nature that they have no inner tendency toward virtue, but
are guided by sensuous impulses and fear (Eth. Nic., x, 10), but the
better-gifted free-born man is by nature thoroughly good, and hence has
in his own reason the pure fountain of moral knowledge. On this
presupposition Aristotle can have perfectly free and confident scope on
the basis of the subjective spirit; and notwithstanding that lie
conceives the idea of God as the rational absolute spirit, more
profoundly than Plato, still he connects the study of nature and of the
moral spirit much less closely with the God-idea than does Plato. From
the very circumstance that he finds in the real world a much more pure
expression of the divine thought than Plato, he is enabled to confide
himself more unquestioningly to reality, to merge himself trustingly
into the real world, to read in its traces the words of divine truth;
and he has also much less need of the supernatural element, which,
because of the God-opposed undivine substratum of the universe, was
highly necessary in the system of Plato.
Hence in Aristotle morality is entirely rooted in the soil of the
subject; it appears less as the holy will of God to man, than as the
absolutely normal essence of the spiritual life, as called-for by the
rational human spirit itself. While there was in Plato at least the
foreshadowing of the truth, that the goal of the moral striving lies in
God-likeness and in the pleasure of God in man, and hence bears an
objective character, in Aristotle the subjective character comes
decidedly into the fore-ground, namely, in the thought that this goal
is the personal well-being of the moral subject. In Plato the highest
and truest is and remains an object of the yon-side, an absolutely
ideal somewhat that is never perfectly presented in reality, and never
entirely to be attained to,--in Aristotle all ideality becomes also
real, and all that is true a quality of the this-side, and that, too,
not as brought into reality from without, but as wrought out from
within. The real world is also in moral respects a perfect expression
of the idea, and no longer a mere feeble impression thereof,--is the
original, is an organism that potentially unfolds itself with its own
inherent power. Hence we find no longer any longing and thirsting after
a better and ideal world, no poetical contemplating, no painful
consciousness that the spirit is fettered and bound in bands of
unfreedom by an unspiritual substratum of the universe; with Aristotle
life has no longer a tragical character; from his world-theory there
spring no longer any dark and mysterious tragedies; his theory is a
quieting, genial one; and with the falling away of the longings of
unsatisfaction, falls away also poetry; the sober prose of the spirit
as contenting itself with the world as it is, takes its place. And in
this very contentedness there lies a greater antithesis to the
Christian world-theory than is presented in the Platonic consciousness
of an inner antagonism of existence. The rather mystical
contemplativeness of Plato gives place to a calculatingly rationalistic
view.
The psychological examination of the presuppositions of ethics, is much
more largely and deeply carried out by Aristotle than by Plato, and
constitutes the bright point in his philosophy; but that his ethics
has, in fact, predominantly only a psychological character, and is
rooted neither in religion nor in history, is its weak side. While
Plato makes at least an effort to give to morality an ideal character
transcending reality, the ethics of Aristotle rather confines itself
with unquestioning satisfaction to the sphere of the reality of man,
without even raising the query, whether this reality is in a state of
normal purity, or on the contrary of deterioration; and it is
characteristic of their respective views of the moral, that the thought
of personal immortality which stands forth so prominently in Plato, and
which gives to the moral striving its proper tone and consecration,
retires in Aristotle into a very dubious back-ground. In fact, he
directly declares it as absurd (atopon) to affirm, that no one is happy
until after he has died (Eth. Nic., i, c. 11, 13); he knows only of a
morality of the this-side. And he expressly declares death as the
greatest of all evils (phoberotaton ho thanatos); "for it is the end of
every thing; and for the deceased there appears to be no longer either
any good or any evil" (Eth. Nic., iii, 9), and hence death robs man of
the highest goods (iii, 12).
__________________________________________________________________
[81] Spengel, in his Abhandl. d. Kgl. Baierschen Akad., philos.-philol.
Klasse, 1841, iii, 2; 1846, p. 171 sqq. Brandis: Aristoteles, 1851, i,
p. 111 sqq.; ii, p. 1555 sqq.
[82] Compare Biese: Philos. des Arist., 1838 sqq., 2 vols.,--a studious
presentation, though not sufficiently digested philosophically.
Brandis: Arist., 2 Abth., 1857 (especially pp. 1335-1682); profound but
too detailed. Trendelenburg: Histr. Bietr. z. Phil., ii, 1855, p. 352
sqq.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XVII.
All striving has a goal, and this goal is for the rational striving a
good, and hence the highest goal is the highest good; and this highest
good is a perfect felt well-being, which is not a merely passive state,
but a perfect active life of the rational spirit; and hence it consists
essentially in virtue, which in its turn includes per se in itself the
feeling of happiness.--Virtue itself is either thought-virtue or
ethical virtue, according as it relates to reason or to sensuousness.
Thought-virtue is acquired by learning, ethical virtue by practice. As
the good consists in harmony, and hence in a proper measure, hence the
non-good consists in a too-much or a too-little. Hence virtue is always
the observance of the proper mean between two unvirtues. The
presupposition of all moral action is the perfect freedom of the will,
a doctrine to which Aristotle,--in opposition to the view of Socrates
that the knowledge of the right necessarily leads to its
practice,--holds distinctly fast.
The rational spirit is not a reposing or merely passively moved entity,
but an activity. The thinking spirit is at the same time a
volitionating, an acting, and a working spirit. All volitionating aims
at something as an end, namely, in all cases, that which appears to
him, who volitionates, as a good. Hence the good (to agathon) is
primarily that whereon the striving is directed in view to its
attainment. Now there are many and different ends and goods, whereof
some are related to others merely as co-adjutant, as means to higher
ends and goods. But if the striving is a rational one, that is, a sure
and consistent one, then there must be a last end, a highest good,
which is not a mere means to another end, but which is aimed at for its
own sake, and for the sake of which alone we aim at all other goods,
and which is hence an absolutely perfect end, a toleion, which has its
end, to telos, within itself. Honor, riches, knowledge, etc., are
goods, though they are not sought for their own sake, but always for a
higher purpose to which they are but the means,--are but the partial
goods of one perfect good; and this good is the perfection of one's own
existence and life, the well-being, eb(atpovia, that is, the vitality
of the life as perfect in itself, and as being its own end,--zoes
teleias energeia. This well-being is not sought in the interest of
another good, but for its own sake, and is hence the highest good
(Nic., i, c. 1 sqq.; comp. Eud., i, 1). This "eudaemonia" is by no
means one and the same with our notion of happiness, but includes the
same in itself. Happiness is only the one, the subjective phase,
namely, the happiness-feeling that is connected with this
"eudaemonia,'" whereas the "eudaemnonia" itself has essentially and
primarily an objective significancy, namely, the being well-conditioned
or blessed, the possession of the all-sidedly perfect life. Hence it is
not without meaning when a special examination is entered upon as to
whether the pleasure-feeling is included in the "eudaemonia" (Nic., i,
c. 9).--The good is accordingly by no means a mere idea never entirely
realizable in the this-side, as with Plato, but it is a full reality
already in the present life,--finds this reality in the actual being
and life of the sage; it is not a merely abstract general something;
but a definite quality inherent in individual existence; not a yon-side
something transcending all special goods, but one that is realized in
the totality itself of these goods (Nic., i, 4). This totality,
however, is not a mere sum, for were this the case the highest good
might be increased by some newly added good, but it is a unitary whole,
whereof the different goods are but the special forms (Nic., i, 5).
Well-being as a purely human good is not mere life, for life exists
also with plants and animals, nor yet the mere sentient life, for this
exists also with animals; but it is the rationally-active life, and
hence the perfectly active life of the rational spirit,--is not mere
being and determinatedness, but a self-determining, an energeia,--is
not merely a good, but works the good on and on (Nic., i, 6, 7). This
implies of itself that the highest good, well-being, is not outside of
or merely subsequent to virtute; on the contrary, virtue itself
constitutes a part of the essence of the highest good, which in fact
consists in activity, though it is not per se the whole highest good;
for to perfect well-being belongs also the happiness-feeling, the
feeling of pleasure, which results upon the successful issuing of the
virtuous activity. Hence this happiness-feeling is not a something
independent of virtue, and existing outside of and along-side of it; on
the contrary the virtuous life already contains happiness as its
necessary constituent; for only he is virtuous who does the good
gladly, who has joy in virtue. In so far, therefore, one may indeed say
that the highest good consists in the practicing of virtue, and of all
the virtues (Nic., i, 7-9). However, Aristotle admits that to perfect
well-being belong also such goods as are not already directly given in
virtue itself, such as are even independent thereof, as, e. g., earthly
affluence, good descent, beauty, health, a happy close of life, etc.
(Nic., i, 9-11). With this very true concession to the natural
consciousness as unprejudiced by any one-sided system, the
consequentiality of Aristotle's ethical system is manifestly broken.
For if there are real goods, and conditions of the highest good, which
are independent of moral perfection, and if consequently the truly
virtuous man may possibly be without the highest good, then there
prevails no moral world-order, and morality is deprived of its
assurance; and as it is a legitimate goal to strive for the highest
good, hence it follows that man must strive after still other
possessions outside of morality, and which do not depend thereon, and
which he can consequently acquire only in extra-moral and hence immoral
ways. But as Aristotle does not recognize any guilty corruption of
human nature, hence the above concession involves him in an absolutely
insolvable dilemma, in a violent contradiction with his own system. He
prefers, however, to be in contradiction with himself, rather than, in
the interests of his system, to deny manifest experience, to the true
understanding of which he does not possess the key.
But wherein now consists virtue, and hence the most essential element
of well-being? In man there is a two-phased life, sensuousness and
reason, which are often in conflict with each other. Sensuousness, in
so far as it is not purely vegetative, namely, the nutritive activity
of the physical life, but sensuous desire, may be and should be
governed by the reason. Virtue assumes accordingly a twofold form; in
the first place it relates to the proper condition of reason itself,
and in the second place to the proper condition of the sensuous nature,
as consisting in the subordination of the same to reason; in the first
sense it is thought-virtue, in the second ethical virtue (arete
dianoetike and ethike). The former is mainly wisdom; the latter
includes temperateness, liberality, etc. That the former belongs among
the virtues, appears from this, that we praise it in a person as his
merit (Nic., i, 13). The word ethical as applied here to virtue is
taken in its narrower sense, as relating to practical habits. It is
clear at a glance, that this division of the virtues is entirely
inadequate, unless the one or the other class of virtues is taken in a
wider sense than is strictly admissible. For there are purely spiritual
virtues, e. g., humility, truthfulness, fidelity, thankfulness, which
are in no way connected with sensuousness, and are yet not intellectual
or thought-virtues. But if we take wisdom, as in Plato, in the wide
sense of an inner harmony of the rational soul in general, then very
manifestly the ethical virtues which consist in the controlling of the
sensuous nature, would not be co-ordinate but subordinate thereto.--The
thought-virtue can be taught or learned, especially by abundance of
life-experience; on the contrary, the ethical virtues are acquired by
frequent repetitions of the same actions, that is, by habituation,--are
essentially facilities in acting, acquired by practice. By nature we
have no virtue, but only the possibility and capability thereof; and
the capability becomes a real virtue only by practice and habit. Hence
virtuous actions are primarily not the consequence, but the ground and
presupposition of virtue. It is only by repeatedly acting virtuously
that man becomes virtuous (Nic., ii, 1, 2). How it is possible to act
virtuously before one has virtue, and what motive man can have to act
virtuously before he is virtuous, Aristotle asks indeed, and he
recognizes the difficulty of the question, but he does not solve it.
The indication that we possess virtue is this, that in our virtuous
acting we feel also delight. Virtue is neither a passion, such as
anger, fear, love, hatred, etc., because the passions are natural
movements not springing from our will, nor bearing as yet per se any
moral character, nor is it a faculty, for this is given by nature, but
it is a facility (exis), that is, the moral manner of our bearing
toward the passions; and indeed it is that particular facility whereby
man becomes a good man, and his work a good work (Nic., ii, 5). [83]
This is of course as yet a very insignificant and purely formal
definition. In order to give it some contents, Aristotle resorts to
this course: In every matter there is only a single form of the right,
but manifold forms of the wrong,--even as in regard to a mark there are
many directions-for shooting by it, but only one for hitting it, for
which reason also the right is much more difficult to find and to do
than is the unright. The unright in a manner of acting is either a
defect or an excess; the right is the correct measure, and hence the
mean between the two. Hence virtue is (and this is its complete
definition) a freely-willed facility in observing the middle-way
(mesotes) as correctly determined for us by reason and by the judgment
of the judicious (Nic., ii, 6; iii, 8; comp. Eud., ii, 3). [That in
this connection only the ethical virtues are meant, appears from the
entire context. But by this circumstance the general definition of
virtue becomes again more unclear.] The middle-way is in all things the
best. Virtue aims consequently not at a mean between good and evil, but
at the best, and the best is the mean between too much and too little.
Thus, bravery is the mean between cowardice and fool-hardiness;
temperateness, the mean between dissoluteness and insensibility to
pleasure-sensations; liberality the mean between prodigality and
niggardliness; love of honor stands mid-way between unbounded
ambitiousness of fame and an absolute indifference to the opinion of
others; evenness of temper, between irascibility and stupidity, etc.
(Nic., ii, 7). From this it follows that any two mutually-opposed
faults stand to each other in a much more violent contrast, than does
either of the two to the corresponding virtue (Nic., ii, 8).
It is very manifest that this merely quantitative distinguishing of
good and evil does not touch the essence of morality at all, and in its
practical application undermines all certainty of the moral judgment,
which is thereby transferred from the sphere of the conscience into
that of the calculating understanding. In this view evil' is not
qualitatively, that is, essentially, different from the good, but it
differs only in number and degree; hence there is between the two no
radical antithesis, but only a gradual transition; in fact the
transition from one vice to the opposite one passes necessarily through
the corresponding virtue. Aristotle himself becomes conscious of the
defectiveness of his definition of virtue; he concedes that there are
also actions and tempers in regard to which the notion of the too-much
or too-little is not at all applicable, as, e. g., delight in
misfortune, envy, murder, theft, adultery, which are all per se and in
their essence wrong, and do not simply become so by rising to a certain
height; there can be, for example, no permissible degree of adultery,
and so of the other cases (Nic., ii, 7). And if notwithstanding this he
is still unwilling to discard his definition of virtue, this only
evinces the utter perplexity of the theorist; for by making this
concession, his definition is completely undermined, inasmuch as it is
thereby implied that the difference between good and evil is not a
quantitative but a qualitative one. And the matter is made much worse
still by the express admission, that virtue is often not in the actual
middle between the two opposite-standing faults, but stands nearer to
the one extreme than to the other,--that bravery, e. g., stands nearer
to fool-hardiness than to cowardice, liberality nearer to prodigality
than to niggardliness, etc., and that of two errors the one is usually
less hurtful than the other (Nic., ii, 8),--for by this admission not
only is the ground-principle entirely overthrown, but also all
possibility of a certain judgment as to morality is cut off. By wlhat
rule is one to find in the diagonal the correct virtue-point, if this
point is an eccentric one? Aristotle himself feels the great difficulty
which results from charging the moral consciousness of the individual
with the duty of such a calculation;;and he knows no better counsel to
give than that given by Circe to Ulysses in regard to his sailing
between Scylla and Charybdis, namely, to steer nearer the less
dangerous Scylla,--to go nearer the extreme that is less remote from
the mean virtue, than to the other, and to incur the risk of the less
fault of the two; and in order most easily to find the middle-way, one
must sometimes deviate (apoklinein) on the side of excess; and
sometimes on the side of defectiveness (Nic., ii, 9). More patently
than this, Aristotle could hardly possibly have confessed the
insufficiency of his definition of virtue.
Morality presupposes the freedom of the will; only that which takes
place from free self-determination is morally imputed to a man, is
praised or blamed. Virtue belongs exclusively to the sphere of freedom;
that is unfree which is either forced or which is done from ignorance;
passionate movements of feeling, such as anger or sensuous desire, do
not destroy the freedom of the will, for man can and should control
them by reason; even in case of moral violence, by the excitement of
fear, etc., the freedom of volition remains; involuntary is only the
forced action which takes place with inner resistance (Nic., iii, 1-3;
comp. Eud., ii, 6). From willingness as the more comprehensive notion,
the resolution is, as the narrower, to be distinguished, namely, the
will as deliberately directed to a definite and possible-regarded goal
(Nic., iii, 4, 5). A resolution is free also in regard to the
recognized good or evil. Every resolution is, it is true, directed to a
good,--with the sage always to the truly good, but with others to that
which to them seems to be good; from this it does not follow, however,
that men always sin simply from error, and that where there is a real
knowledge of the good, the resolution must necessarily be directed to
this, as is taught by Socrates and Plato. Such a view is contradicted
even by the general moral judgment both of individuals and of the
State, which makes man, as soon as he has come to understanding,
responsible for all the evil which he does, and imputes it to him as
guilt. It is- true, many do evil simply from the error of their moral
judgment or from the worthlessness of their character, but both that
error and this worthlessness are their own fault, and do not excuse
them; in fact man can even purposely do what he has recognized as evil,
namely, by inquiring not after the good, but only after the agreeable;
and the opinion that no one does evil voluntarily and consciously,
conflicts with undeniable experience and with the essence of
will-freedom (Nic., iii, 6, 7; v, 12; vii, 2, 3). In this connection
Aristotle makes the significant and almost surprising observation, that
the character which has become evil by guilt can just as little he
thrown off again at mere volition, as the person who has made himself
sick by his own fault, can become well again at mere volition; once
become evil or sick, it stands no longer within his discretion to cease
to be so; a stone when once cast cannot be caught back from its flight;
and so is it also with the character which has become evil. This
thought might have led further; Aristotle, however, does not follow it
out, and he leaves unanswered the closely related question, as to how,
then, a reformation in character is possible. Moreover, he does not
concede to evil any other than an individual effect,--knows nothing of
any natural solidarity of evil in self-propagating, morally-degenerated
races. Every man, at least the. free-born Greek, is, on the contrary,
perfectly good by nature, and the sensuous nature with which every one
is born has, in reason, its perfectly sufficient counterpoise.
__________________________________________________________________
[83] Comp. Trendelenburg: Histor. Beitr., i, pp. 95, 174.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XVIII.
In carrying out his system into details Aristotle treats first the
ethical virtues, and as their chief representatives: courage,
temperateness, liberality, magnanimity (from which the love of honor
is, as of a lower quality, to be distinguished), the proper control of
temper, and, as predominantly social virtues: amiability, truthfulness,
readiness in good-natured wit, shame, but especially justness and, as
closely-related therewith, fairness or equity. As intellectual or
thought-virtues are examined, more largely, prudence and wisdom; and
their significancy is more closely defined than in Socrates and Plato.
As considered under another phase, namely, in respect to the degree of
the moral power virtualizing itself in the doing of the good, the moral
character is distinguished, into virtuousness in the narrower sense,
into temperateness, and into heroic or divine virtue.
The carrying-out of the ethical matter proper, though rich in
suggestive thoughts and observations, is devoid of a general scientific
development from one central principle; nor do we find as yet any
strict organic classification. The Platonic division of the virtues (S:
14), though made the basis, is neither strictly observed nor further
developed. Differing from Plato, Aristotle does not first discuss
wisdom as the root of all the other virtues, but, on the contrary,
manliness or courage (andria) which stands mid-way between fool-hardy
daring and cowardice. It relates not to all the evils that are to be
assailed, but essentially to death; and also not to every mortal
danger, but more especially to the most honorable of these dangers,
danger upon the battle-field, and besides also to mortal danger by sea
and in sickness (Nic., iii, 9-12). This limitation, though explainable
from the warlike national character, is not based in the moral idea;
and for courage in the full sense of the word in the face of all evils,
Aristotle finds no place at all in his system of virtue. The motive to
courage is not the thought of an eternal crown,--for death is for the
virtuous man the most fearful of all evils, for precisely for him life
has the greatest worth,--but this motive is only a delight in duty and
in the beautiful (Nic., iii, 12).--The second virtue is temperateness
or moderation (sophrosune), which consists in the observance of the
right mean in regard to sensuous pleasure, even as, on the other hand,
courage relates to evil, that is, pain. The extending of this virtue to
other than the sensuous, and that too the lowest sensuous feelings of
taste and of sensibility, is expressly disallowed; and hence there
remain moral phenomena, both virtues and vices, which find no place
whatever in the classes of virtue admitted by Aristotle. As to the
question, by what rule the proper measure is to be judged, we are not
answered; virtue is simply placed in the middle between the
immoderation which surrenders itself passionately to sensuous pleasure,
and which sinks man to the brute, and an entire desirelessness or
insensibility to sensuous pleasure, which, however, only rarely or in
fact strictly speaking never exists,--for then man would be no longer
human (Nic., iii, 13-15); in which case the finding of the virtuous
mean between the two faults would be a rather difficult
matter.--Liberality or generosity, as the third virtue, is the
observance of the middle-way in the use of property. It gives
cheerfully, out of delight in the beauty of the action, but only to
such as deserve it; that it rests on love is not stated. As especially
important, is extensively discussed, liberality for public and
generally useful ends, for theatrical entertainments, for popular
diversions, for the feasting of the collective citizenship, for the
outfitting of war-ships, and for the keeping up of a state of luxury in
the interest of the dignity of the person,--the virtue of megaloprepeia
(Nic., iv, 1-6). Of the moral dangers of riches for the moral
disposition itself, aside from the two errors of prodigality and
niggardliness, nothing is said; on the contrary, riches is regarded as
a high and much to be desired good.--Magnanimity (megalopsuchia)
belongs only to men of high gifts, and is, as opposed to empty
pretense, on the one hand, and to self-disparaging pusillanimousness,
on the other, the proper respecting of self, the moral pride of the
great man,--while the proper self-respect of the ordinary person is not
magnanimity, but only modesty; the former virtue stands higher than the
latter. Only he can be magnanimous who is adorned with all the virtues,
that is, the truly great man; and he puts this virtue into practice, in
that he strives after true honor, that is, after the esteem of the
great and noble, as the highest of external goods, while he disdains
the honor and reproach which come from unimportant men. But proper
magnanimity is only possible when, with the inner virtue-merit there is
associated also an outwardly happy and eminent condition, such as rich
possessions, a highborn family, power, etc., for this brings honor;
hence the magnanimous man will seek, though not primarily and chiefly,
after these things, not so much for their own sake, as simply for the
honor associated with them. In less great souls the virtue of
magnanimity gives place to the love of honor which looks only to
inferior degrees of honor, and which holds the mean between immoderate
ambition and pusillanimity (Nic., iv, 7-10).--The virtue of equanimity
or gentleness, (praotes) occupies the mean between irascibility and
phlegmatic insensibility, and hence consists in the proper tempering of
anger, and is practically of difficult observance. Not to indulge in
anger at all is stolidity, and not to defend one's self against
offenses is dishonorable and cowardly. It is advisable not to repress
wrath, but to let it come to expression; the indulging of vengeance
stills wrath. Aristotle regards revenge as a something entirely
legitimate, and simply warns against over-indulgence. More specific
limitations of this dangerous virtue he regards as impracticable,
holding that feeling decides this best in each particular case, and
that minor deviations from the right mean are here not to be censured
(Nic., iv, 11).
Without any strict logical connection, Aristotle now passes to treat of
the social virtues. Between the vices of a fawning seeking for
approbation and a yielding to the wishes of every one, on the one hand,
and an unsocial abruptness, on the other, stands the virtue of friendly
and polite amiability, a virtue which (in distinction from personal
love) relates not to definite loved persons, but to all with whom we
come into association, and does not rest on love (Nic., iv, 12).
Between vain-boastfulness and ironical self-disparagement, lies the
virtue of truthfulness of discourse, especially in relation to the
speaker himself, in other words, straightforwardness and honesty. But
inasmuch as too strong self-praise is more offensive to others than
self-disparagement, hence it is advisable to speak rather too humbly
than too highly of one's self (Nic., iv, 13). A third social virtue
relates to social intercourse and jesting, and is, in contrast to
buffoonery and excessive irony, on the one hand, and sardonic
moroseness on the other, cheerful facetiousness and gracious aptness in
wit (eutrapelia) (Nic., iv, 14; comp. Eud., iii, 7). Aristotle speaks
here merely incidentally of shame, that is, the fear of disgrace, which
is indeed not per se a virtue, but only an instinct; it becomes a
virtue only under special circumstances, namely, when a mature person
has really done something of which he must feel ashamed, and also in
youth, because here the passions are violent, and shame is a check
against them. The morally matured man, however, is never to have
occasion to feel ashamed, for he is not by any means to think of
himself as being so constituted as to be capable of doing anything
shameful (Nic., iv, 15). Of the true moral significancy of shame, which
is so suggestively indicated in Gen. iii, 7, Aristotle has no
conception.
The most important social virtue, the one which in fact includes all
the others in so far as they relate to our conduct toward others, is
justness, which consists in respecting the laws of the State and the
rights of others, so that every man is treated as he deserves and as he
has a right to claim. In a narrower sense justness relates only to the
"mine" and the "thine," to property and earnings. The principle of the
just mean is here of difficult application, as there is manifestly no
immoral form of conduct which can contain too great an observance of
the rights of others (Nic. v, 1-14.)
Related to justness, and belonging thereto in the wider sense of the
word, is the subordinate virtue of equitableness or fairness. It
accomplishes--in contrast to the rigid observance of the letter of the
civil law--true justness outside of the requirements of the law, which
can in fact only express the general, and cannot apply to every
individual case; hence it is an improving and perfecting of the law, in
that in the interest of justness one does not in certain cases insist
on a right which the outward law concedes (Nic., v, 15). Against his
own self man cannot, properly speaking, do injustice; even suicide, as
being voluntary, is not an injustice to one's self, but only to the
State.
In respect to the intellectual or thought-virtues, of which only
prudence and wisdom are more especially treated (Nic., vi, 1-13), the
thought of the middle-way is of course no longer applicable; they do
not themselves observe the just mean, rather is it they themselves that
discover it. Prudence or sensibleness (phronesis, more than prudence as
the word is usually taken, but also not synonymous with reasonableness,
as Brandis would have it) is the spiritual facility of making in each
particular case suitable practical decisions in regard to what is good
or evil for the actor. Wisdom (sophia) is of a higher character, and
given to prudence its right basis. It is the proper knowledge of the
ultimate grounds of true knowledge, and the deriving of the same from
these grounds, and hence refers to the immutable, whereas prudence has
to do with the mutable and transitory; wisdom relates to the
universally valid; prudence, to that which is befitting for the
individual; and hence prudence is the specific practical application of
wisdom, which latter expresses rather the moral idea per se. Hence
prudence or sensibleness is the applying of moral wisdom in the ethical
virtues. Wisdom and prudence do not constitute the whole of virtue
itself, as Socrates affirms, but they are, as orthos logos, the
necessary presupposition of all the other virtues.
Aristotle passes now to another manner of considering the moral
bearing, namely, not, as thus far, in reference to its material
quality, but in reference to the degree of moral energy therein
virtualized. Over against the threefold gradation of the immoral that
is to be distinguished in this respect, namely, viciousness,
incontinence, and brutality,--wherein the moral consciousness and the
moral will are either badly constituted or feeble, or entirely
wanting,--stands the threefold gradation of the moral, namely,
virtuousness in the narrower sense, continence, and heroic or divine
virtue; the latter makes man entirely like the gods, but is attained to
only seldom; but equally seldom is also the opposite extreme,
brutality. Incontinence is a weakness of the moral will, for the person
knows that his desires are evil, nevertheless he follows them, and
hence sins (what Socrates declares as impossible) consciously and from
passionateness. On the contrary, he who is continent or firm in
character acts constantly in harmony with his rational insight. The
feeble and hesitative manner in which Aristotle attempts to answer the
perplexing questions which present themselves in this connection,
indicates very clearly, how little knowledge he has of the perversity
of a corrupted heart (Nic., vii, 1-7). While Socrates covers the
majority of sins with ignorance and error, and thus palliates their
guilt, Aristotle, who recognizes the manifold contradiction between
knowledge and volition, goes so far in the other direction, as to admit
inborn faults and passions, and even inborn unnatural vices, and to
find therein a degree of excuse for the deviating of those who are thus
afflicted, from better knowledge; "the fact of having such
proclivities, lies outside of the sphere of the morally evil;" and when
man is dominated by such evil proclivities, it is only in an improper
sense that his conduct is to be called immoral (Nic., vii, 6). How such
an innateness of evil proclivities is to be explained1 we are not
informed. The proclivity to anger especially is to be judged very
mildly,--there. lies in it even something rational, as in contrast to
the sensuous desires, and at all events no presumption; and its
justification lies in its universal prevalence. In general it is
excusable to follow one's natural proclivities, and this all the more
so the more they are universal (Nic., vii, 7). The incontinent are not
properly speaking vicious, but only similar to the vicious, and for the
reason that in them there is no evil purpose (Nic.. vii, 9.)
After an extended consideration of friendship as a special field of the
moral activity, Aristotle concludes with an extensive discussion of
pleasure (hedone) and well-being (eudaimonia) as results of virtuous
conduct. Pleasure is not identical with the good,--is not the highest
good, but many kinds of pleasure are goods, and hence to be aimed at,
while others are not so. Pleasure is the result of a power-exertion in
coming to its goal, and hence is an attendant of life-development per
se; now, according as this power-exertion is good or evil, so is also
the pleasure attending it, and only the pleasure which is connected
with an exercise of virtue is true pleasure (Nic., x, 1-5). Well-being
is not a mere condition, but is essentially life-activity, and indeed
such a life-activity as is not a purposeless play, but a rational
practicing of virtue. Now as cognition is the highest spiritual
exertion of power, hence the acquiring of the knowledge of wisdom is
coincident with the highest well-being; all other activity is less
constant and permanent, less free and independent,--rests less upon
itself and has its end less within itself. Hence the practically-acting
life stands only in secondary importance, as in fact also the life and
the happiness of the gods, or of God, consists not in such an
outward-working activity, but only in reflection. In third importance
stand the outward goods of fortune: health, riches, etc. Now, though
such goods are indeed also necessary to well-being, still they are
needed only in a moderate degree, and the sage can be happy even with
relatively small goods of fortune; for he who develops and perfects the
thinking spirit with great zeal is the most beloved of the gods, and is
the happiest, for he is most like the gods (Nic., x, 6-9). Herein this
ethical system returns to its starting-point, though we cannot say that
this return results from a natural and organic development. Indeed, the
fact that wellbeing is indicated as the highest good, at the outset of
the ethical development, and that now it presents itself in the end as
the result of the moral life-activity, would seem to present an
excellently rounded development-course of the system; but Aristotle
essentially disturbs this organic development of his thoughts by his
preference (surprising, in view of his previous discussions) of the
contemplative life to the outwardly-active life, and for the assumed
reason that the former, as being the truly divine life, far transcends
the latter; and when he is at the very point of making the transition
from merely individual morality into the consideration of the moral
community-life,--which rests quite predominantly on the
practically-working activity of all the individuals and is primarily
the result thereof,--he throws this activity with a strange disdain
into the background, behind the purely intellectual activity of the
unsocial individual spirit. In this connection Plato is at least more
consequential, in that he by no means directs the philosopher to the
merely contemplative life, but concedes to him political domination as
his peculiar right and his highest calling. It is evidently no very
virtue-encouraging thought, that the highest well-being should be
one-sidedly placed in an activity, for which only the fewest virtues
are requisite.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XIX.
The idea, already so strongly emphasized by Plato, of a moral
community-life, is developed by Aristotle further still, and more
judiciously, without his being able, however, fully to divest it of the
one-sidedness of the general Graeco-heathen world-view. The idea of
humanity as a moral whole is entirely wanting to him also; individual
morality has absolute, predominance. The family is indeed somewhat more
highly conceived of than in Plato, because the reality of life is more
impartially observed, but yet it is not recognized as the basis of the
moral whole, but only as a subordinate manifestation-form of morality
as bearing upon the moral community-life. Wedlock-love and family-love
in general is only a special form of friendship as expressive of
individual morality. Friendship, however, is not so much a duty as an
expression of the striving after individual well-being,--bears not an
objective but a subjective character.--But also friendship forms
neither the basis nor the transition to a moral community-life; the
community-life, on the contrary, is based directly upon the laws as
expressive of the moral idea, and as constituting the state, the task
of which is, under the guidance of the morally higher-gifted, to tutor
and direct the great multitude of the morally-immature, and to
habituate them to the good.
To the examination of friendship Aristotle devotes two entire books of
his Ethics, in great detail. Friendship is indeed virtue, but not a
special virtue along-side of the others; it is rather a special
manifestation-form of virtue in general. Its definition is more
comprehensive than is usual in modern times, and includes in itself
love in general, but it is by no means identical with the Christian
idea of love; it has not an objective and general, but only a
subjective and individual significancy; it loves not for the sake of
the loved one, but for the happiness of the lover,--seeks primarily not
the weal of the other, but its own, loves not man as man, but only this
or that person according to individual election, to the exclusion of
others. The idea of general love to man, as a duty, is to Aristotle
also as well as to the Greek in general, utterly foreign. The highest
attainment consists in true friendship to one or to a few chosen ones.
Toward the rest of mankind there is shown only a very feeble and
luke-warm good-will, a justness and fairness which respect essentially
only particular rights,--humaneness in the usual sense of the word.
Aristotle connects the examination of friendship directly and expressly
with that of pleasure, and places it before the more particular
development of the latter, and considers it also under such a phase as
that it appears not so much as duty as rather as a virtualization of
the striving after happiness. Friendship seeks indeed also the weal of
the other, but first of all it seeks reciprocal love, and can exist
only where it finds this; nevertheless, that friendship which loves
only for the sake of the pleasure and the benefit, is not the true and
lasting love, but only that which exists between those who are good and
resemblant in virtue, inasmuch as here the per se lasting good and the
person himself are loved; in the friend I love, at the same time, that
which is for myself a good; such true friendship, however, is seldom,
and can never exist at the same time with many persons (Nic., viii,
1-7; ix, 4, 5). Friendship in the narrower sense presupposes a certain
moral similarity between its subjects; but in a wider sense it may also
exist between the dissimilar, especially where the one person has a
spiritual preeminence over the other, and where consequently the kind
of the love is with each party a different one. Under this category
belongs the love between husband and wife, parents and children, and
between the higher and the lower in rank. The higher of two persons
will, and ought to, be more loved in this relation, than he himself
loves, because loving is measured by the worth of the beloved object
(Nic., viii, 8, 9). This feature is characteristic of the predominantly
individual and subjective character of love, in Aristotle's system.
Even parents and children stand to each other only in this individual
relation,--they adapt the degree of their love according to the
individual worth of the other; the family has not an objective
character which is to be held sacred under all circumstances, and which
is superior to all individual choice; the degree of love diminishes
with the increase of the worth of the subject as compared with the
worth of the object; and for self-sacrificing maternal love, Aristotle,
although he observes it, has no just appreciation.
Of wedlock and of sexual love, Aristotle speaks on the whole only
incidentally and very inadequately. Wedlock is the most natural of all
friendships, and has for its end not merely the generation of children,
but also the aiding and complementing of each other in all the
relations of life (Nic., viii, 14; comp. Oecon., i, 3). The husband, as
the stronger, has the duty of protecting the wife and remaining
faithful to her (Oecon., i, 4), and the right to rule over her,--not
absolutely, however, but only in the sphere belonging to him (Nic.,
viii, 12). Children stand to their parents in a permanent
debt-relation,--cannot divest themselves of their obligation to them,
though the father may cast off his son (Nic., vii, 16). The obligation
of children to fulfill the will of the parents is not, however,
unlimited, because other obligations may modify it; the chief duty of
children is to show reverence to their parents, and when they need it,
to assure them sustenance (Nic., ix, 2).
In his further discussion of friendship Aristotle makes many ingenious
observations. Those to whom one has shown benefits, one is accustomed
to love more than those from whom one has received benefits, because
every one esteems especially highly that which himself has done,
whereas he feels the debt-relation as in some sense disagreeable (Nic.,
ix, 7). It is true, Aristotle does not exactly praise this feeling, but
he finds it very natural, and has for it no blame. The truly good man
loves himself perfectly, but this legitimate self-love is not an
enjoyment-seeking selfishness, for he loves in himself only the better
part, and he promotes his own weal, in that he loves and works the
good; and even when he makes sacrifices for others, he wins for himself
the higher good (Nic., ix, 9).
In conceiving of the essence of the family as a mere friendship, it is
natural that Aristotle should not make it the basis of the wider
community-life, the State, but that he should place it rather in the
sphere of individual morality, and that he should make the transition
to the discussion of the state, neither from friendship nor from the
family, but rather derive the thought of the state immediately from the
general thought of morality, and transfer all the moral significancy of
the family to the thus self-based state. This transition Aristotle
makes thus: the teaching of virtue suffices not for the great multitude
to induce them to virtue, seeing that they are guided almost
exclusively by fear and not by knowledge. The multitude must be trained
to virtue and constantly guided, and hence stand in need of laws; the
training of a father suffices not for this, because it lacks the
necessary authority and coercive power; only the rationally-governed
state has both of these, and is hence the necessary condition of a more
general realization of morality (Nic., x, 10).
Aristotle is too judicious an observer of reality, idealistically to
expect all salvation from mere instruction, and not to admit the moral
unimpressibility of the great multitude; he speaks thereof in the
strongest expressions; "the great multitude obeys force rather than
reason, and punishment rather than morality;" "the majority abstain
from evil not because it is disgraceful, but because they fear
punishment; guided only by their passions they aim at nothing but
sensuous pleasure, and shun nothing but the pains that are contrary
thereto; but of the morally beautiful, and of the true joy therein
contained, they have not the least notion, seeing that they have never
tasted it" (Nic., x, 10); and this moral incapability he expressly
refers to the nature that is inborn in them, and only a few happy ones
are free of this innate imperfection; "this nature itself lies
evidently not within our own power, but is by some kind of divine
causality conferred on the truly happy." To explain this broad
difference of natural endowment, he does not make the least attempt,
and in this he stands far below Plato, who derives the imperfection of
human nature (which he also admitted, but conceived of as universal),
from a previous guilt in a life antecedent to the earthly life.
Aristotle renounces also all hope of radically bettering the morally
unreceptive multitude, as indeed he knows of no possibility of doing
it; he contents himself with keeping them in check, and with placing
them under the discipline of an objective moral reality, the state, or
at least with accustoming them, by force and by potent custom, to order
and to obedience, and with restraining them from the outbreaks of
inborn passion; to be truly free in moral respects, however, is the
exclusive privilege of the few who are naturally-gifted.
Aristotle recognizes thus the necessity of a moral community-life,
which, as upheld by the pre-eminent moral spirit of the few
specially-endowed individuals, furnishes, itself, the basis of the
morality of individuals in general, and develops, and guides, and keeps
it in bounds. This is a weighty thought far transcending the
shallowness of modern rationalistic liberalism, which recognizes no
other objective form of the moral community-life, than that which has
grown up on the broad basis of the morality of the great multitude,--a
merely abstract product without any power and effectiveness of its own.
Aristotle regards it as absurd to base a moral community-life upon the
disposition and the spiritual sovereignty of the masses; he calls for
the sovereignty of the spiritual and moral heroes,--the exclusive
authority of the most highly gifted personalities; but he is, as yet,
too deeply involved in the peculiarities of the heathen world-view, to
penetrate to the bottom of the defectiveness of human nature, as
partially recognized by him, and to find the true solution of the
enigma, and to divine the nature of the true remedy; he knows only
man's outward phase, but not the depths of the human heart. He ventures
not to entertain any doubt as to the moral nature of the state-sages
and philosophers, and he knows no other redemption, than (as in
contrast to the profound spiritual blindness and the moral stupidity of
the masses) in an immeasurable exaltation of the insight and the moral
strength of the state-leaders and the sages.--Aristotle sees, in the
state, not a remedial institution actually realizing true morality, but
only a police-organism acting outwardly, checking the evil, and
restoring outward discipline. The state can only ameliorate, but not
radically cure; true wisdom and morality are not imparted by it to
those who are by nature incapable thereof. This view throws light upon
the decided preference of Aristotle for a contemplative life,
uninvolved in any political activity. The highest goods can fall to the
lot only of the few; the fact is not, that many are called while but
few are chosen, but that only a few are called and chosen; there
prevails here an absolute predestination, not, however, from a
monotheistic, but from a fatalistic ground.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XX.
The State is related to the individual citizens of the state and to the
smaller social organisms--the household-life and the local
community--as the absolutely determining and enlivening whole to the
members,--is not so much the product as rather the ground of all
morality. The threefold gradation of dependence in the household-life,
and above all, the relation of master and slave, as resting upon a
primitive nature-destination, is the presupposition of the state.
Placing a higher worth upon the natural social relations than Plato,
and confining himself more fully to historical reality, Aristotle
escapes the unpractical idealism of Plato, but also attains to less
definite results, and furnishes rather a criticism than a
self-consistent theory of the nature of the state. Emphasizing the
development of the individual citizen to free self-determination more
strongly than Plato, he modifies the despotic absolutism of the latter,
and presents as the moral chief-task of the state the moral
disciplining of the free citizens. But the state-idea attains to a
universally-human significancy neither in its outward nor its inward
relation; humanity both in the barbarian and in the slave, is of an
imperfect grade, and capable of no moral emancipation.
Of the Politics of Aristotle we have to do only with the more strictly
ethical contents. He does not connect this work directly with his
Ethics, but treats of its subject-matter from a more practical
stand-point; hence he gives, on the one hand, in his Ethics, the more
general thoughts of the doctrine of the state, and, on the other, he
repeats in his Politics some of the thoughts of his Ethics.
The state is the highest moral communion, and hence realizes the
highest of all goods. Its type is the household-life; its task is not
merely to afford protection and help for the life of the individuals,
but essentially to found and promote the true life, that is, the
spiritually moral life, of the whole. The state is not itself the
product of the already developed moral life of the individuals, but it
is the presupposition thereof; outside of the state there is no moral
development; only he who belongs to the state can be moral; the whole
is antecedent to the parts, and the rational man is a part of the
state; the state is the first, the citizen of the state the second;
outside of the state lives only the animal or God (Pol., i, 1, 2).
Hence the moral relation of the household-life is a presupposition of
the state only in so far as it is a constituent element of the same,
but not in such a sense as to imply that it already existed before the
state and independently of the same. It is peculiarly characteristic
that of the threefold foundation of the household-life, as stated by
Aristotle, namely, the relation of man to wife, of father to children,
and of master to slave, he treats of the first two only merely
incidentally and briefly, but of the third chiefly, and very
thoroughly. Aristotle furnishes for the first time, and in its
entirety, a formal theory of slavery,--a phenomenon very significant
for the history of ethics.
The opinion that slavery is not a something entirely natural, but is
based only upon violence and arbitrary laws, Aristotle emphatically
rejects. A household-life without possessions and without serving
instruments is not conceivable, and hence also not without slaves,
which are in fact living instruments and possessions. Even as the
artist and artisan stand in need of instruments, so the housefather, of
slaves, which are consequently absolutely his property, and subject to
his discretion; this is a natural, and not a merely legal relation,
strictly analogous to the relation of soul and body,--the former as the
absolutely dominating, the latter as the absolutely dominated factor.
And reality corresponds to the want. Men differ in fact from each other
in such a manner that the ones, as being really rational, possess
themselves, and represent the soul of humanity, whereas the others
represent the body of humanity,--are corporeally strong, and adapted
for bodily toil, but are spiritually unfree and ignoble, and, though
distinguished by reason from the brute, are yet not governed by reason
but by sensuous desires. These are destined by nature to be slaves, and
it is well for them that, as the property of others, they are
spiritually dominated (Pol., i, 3-5). And Aristotle expressly says that
those who are destined by nature to slavery are the non-Greeks, the
barbarians. Greek prisoners-of-war are slaves not indeed by nature, but
by law, and hence legitimately.--What the significance of slavery is,
appears clear from the fact that it is a characteristic of a slave that
he may be injured with impunity (Nic., v, 8),--that the notion of
justness holds good only between such persons as have rights, and hence
not between master and slave; that the legitimate and uncensurable
manner of ruling over slaves is the tyrannical, the end of which is
simply the profit of the master (Nic., viii, 12; Pol., i, 8, 9), and
that to a slave as such a relation of love or friendship can as little
have place as to a horse or ox,--in which connection, however, it is to
be observed, that in so far as the slave is also a human being a
certain inferior form of love is admissible. The slave has indeed also
a degree of virtue, for he is required to obey and to be modest and
-temperate, but his morality differs from that of the master, not
merely in degree but in essence; while the master is capable of all
virtue, the slave is utterly incapable of the power of deliberation (to
bouleutikon) and hence evidently of the thought-virtues--prudence and
wisdom (Pol., i, 9). The more humane directions as to the treatment of
slaves (Oecon., i, 5; of questionable authenticity) are to be
interpreted in the light of these principles.
Aristotle subjects the Platonic state to a very keen and sound
criticism; the community of goods and of wives he rejects, as both
unnatural and morally corrupting, and even impossible (Oecon., ii, 2
sqq.). Of his own views Aristotle is more reticent than Plato, and he
gives rather merely general thoughts than specific details. Only that
one should take active part in political life who possesses all civic
virtue, and especially far-seeing insight; but such virtue can exist
only where there is leisure for its development, that is, in such
persons as are free from the necessity of laboring for the common wants
of life,--and hence not in day-laborers, artisans, or farmers (Oecon.,
iii, 5; vii, 9). The soil must be cultivated by slaves. Leisure stands
higher than labor, and is indeed per se happiness. A proper
state-constitution must have for its end the weal of all the free
citizens constituting the state; it may be equally well monarchic, or
aristocratic, or republican (the latter being that wherein all the
truly free citizens take part), and over against these stand as their
perversions: tyranny, oligarchy, and democracy, all of which look to
the good, not of the whole, but only of individual persons, or of
classes in society (Oecon., iii, 6-8; iv, 1 sqq.). It is best for the
State when the best citizens bear rule; and the best one is not to be
bound by trammeling laws, but stands free above the law, although in
general Aristotle places the validity of the law higher than Plato, and
is not hopeful of finding such "best" ones very frequently. The mass of
free citizens are indeed to have part in deliberating upon the laws and
in promoting justice, but not in actually governing (Oecon., iii, 9
sqq.). Aristotle inclines most strongly to a monarchy limited by laws,
and, in this, has his eye manifestly upon Alexander the Great.
The state provides for the public worship and for the moral culture of
the citizens; hence it prescribes, in order to the obtaining of a
vigorous population, the institution of marriage. Maidens are to marry
at their eighteenth year, and men at about the age of thirty-seven, in
order that the children may stand in a proper relation to the age of
the parents, and in order that the differing duration of the productive
period of the two sexes may stand in some degree of harmony, and the
children be robust. The laws are to prescribe the manner of life of the
woman while pregnant, and the physical and spiritual training of the
children. In relation to the exposing of children, the maxim holds
good, "that no physically imperfect (peperomenon) child is to be
raised." Where, however, the traditional usages forbid the exposing of
children, there the excessive increase of the population is to be
prevented by forbidding the procreating of more than a legally fixed
number, and the fetus is to be destroyed before the period of sensation
and quickening (Oecon., vii, 15, 16). The education of the children
stands, as a matter of high importance, under the care of the state;
overseeing this education up to the seventh year, the state then
actually undertakes it itself; for the citizens belong not to
themselves, but to the state. The boys--and the question is only as to
these--are to be instructed in grammar and drawing, because of the
utility of these sciences, and in gymnastics in order to the
development of courage, and in music in order to the employment of the
leisure which becomes the free citizen (labor being confined to the
slave), and in order to the awakening of the sense for harmony (Oecon.,
viii, 3-7).
Though Aristotle presents numerous forms of state-constitution as
possible, and as good and appropriate according to existing
circumstances, yet to the state of true human freedom he is not capable
of rising. Even his most free and most democratic constitution rests
absolutely on the basis of slavery, and on the antithesis of the
Greeks, as true men, to the slave-like barbarians. The education of the
citizens is, in Aristotle, quite similar to the education of a cavalier
in the age of Louis XIV. and XV. It is easy enough to be liberal-minded
when all the labor falls to the lot of those who, as unfree, have no
share in political life. The fact that a so-called anti-Christian
"humanistic" culture of modern times regards the Greeks as the
champions of true humanity, of humanitarianism in the broadest sense of
the word, and their age and their world-theory as "the paradise of the
human mind," from which we of modern times have to learn and receive
true humanitarian notions,--is no striking evidence of great
impartiality of view. Though Aristotle concedes to the different
classes of citizens in the state a somewhat greater freedom and
independency of development than Plato, in that he does not attribute
all right exclusively to the absolutism of the state, still this
recognition of a relatively free self-development does not by any means
reach down to the laboring classes; the laborers are absolutely passive
and for the most part personally rightless members of the state,--are
but the immovably soil-bound roots of the tree whose richly-developed
branches and leaves wave freely in the air above. The distinction and
the classification of the ranks in society are not a moral ordinance,
but a merely natural and hence unfree one,--rests not upon a moral
self-subordination to a moral idea, but upon the compulsory necessity
of extra-moral nature-differences,--springs not from a like moral
dignity and task; but from the naturally different moral nature of the
different classes of mankind. The slave and the laborer are morally
entirely different and inferior beings, and have neither the task nor
the capability of even comprehending the full moral idea, much less
that of realizing it; this is the privilege of the higher classes of
free citizens. A moral redemption of the great multitude from this ban
of moral unfreedom and incapacity is an utterly foreign thought even to
the philosopher; nay, he would feel called upon, should he conceive of
even the possibility of such a redemption, to assail and prevent it
with all his might, for with it would fall to the ground, for the
Greek, not merely all reality of the state, but also all possibility of
a social community-life. It is only among the rudest barbarians that he
can conceive of a moral equality of the individuals; and the Christian
idea of humanity, as moral, must have appeared to the Greek as well as
to the Roman as a falling back into rude barbarism; and the war of life
and death as carried on against Christianity by the otherwise so
tolerant Romans, had, at bottom, not so much a religious as rather a
social motive; it was the perfectly correct consciousness, that
Christianity, although essentially a purely religiously-moral power,
would inevitably radically undermine the foundation-principles of the
heathen state, and shatter to pieces the entire absolutely slave-based
social fabric. The thought of recognizing the slave and the barbarian
as morally equal to the freeman, and as called to equal moral dignity
and eternal glory, appeared to the Greek, no less than to the Roman, as
a treason to human society, as a high crime against the solely possible
foundations of a rational state. Beyond this world-theory Plato and
Aristotle did not rise.
As in relation to those within the Greek state, so also in relation to
the non-Greeks, is the thought of humanity, in Aristotle, radically
defective. The non-Greeks belong only in a very loose sense to humanity
at all,--are really but half-men, destined by nature to be dominated
over by the Greeks, as born for ruling. War upon them is treated of by
Aristotle, unhesitatingly, under the head of the legitimate occupations
of life, and more specifically under that of the chase: "War is, in its
very nature, a branch of industry; for the chase is a form of the
industrial activity, which comes to application as well in relation to
wild beasts, as also in relation to those men who are destined by
nature to be ruled over (pephukotes archesthai) but are not willing
thereto,--so that consequently such a war is a just one " (Oecon., i,
8). War is regarded by no means as an evil, but as a normal
life-manifestation of the nations, as a necessary condition of the
virtualizing of one of the most essential of the virtues. The relation
of the moral community-life to the rest of mankind is consequently in
no sense one which looks to the realizing of a moral communion, but is
a purely negating and destructive one. Ethics proclaims not peace but
war,--aims not at emancipating and redeeming, but at subjugating;
non-Greek humanity is not an object of moral influencing, but of
violent subjugating. The Greek knows no mission of the word, but only
of the sword.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXI.
The form of Grecian and heathen ethics which attained in Aristotle to
its highest perfection, is that of the natural man as contented in and
with himself; it lacks the consciousness of the historical reality and
of the historical development of sin,--of the antagonism of the reality
of natural man, as sprung from an historical act, to the moral idea,
and of the earnestness of the moral struggle against sin; instead
thereof we find the introduction of a proud distinction between a
multitude incapable by nature of true morality, and an elect minority
of free-born men capable of all wisdom and virtue, and among the latter
a lofty virtue-pride of man as having attained without severe inner
struggle to an easily-won self-satisfaction. Humility is not a virtue
of a free sage, but only of the slave and plebeian, as born unto
serving obedience.--Morality rests only upon the knowledge (independent
of the religious consciousness) of the per se good, but not upon
love,--neither upon love to God nor upon love to man; love is not the
ground, but only a co-ordinate manifestation-form of virtue. Hence also
the solely true moral community-life is only a product of wise and
rational calculation, but not of love; and the primitive community-life
of moral love, namely, the family, is not the basis, but only one phase
of the state-life. The moral view of Aristotle, and indeed of the
Greeks in general, is consequently not merely manifoldly different from
the Christian view, but indeed radically opposed thereto.
It is very important clearly to realize this inner antithesis of
Aristotelian and Christian ethics, and all the more so as Aristotle has
had, even up to the latest times, a so great and so largely bewildering
influence upon the shaping of Christian ethics. Though not wishing to
undervalue the high scientific significancy of the Aristotelian system,
we are yet not at liberty to find in it thoughts which are really
foreign to it.
The Christian consciousness rests entirely upon the recognition of the
general necessity of redemption, and indeed not simply in reference to
a moral defectiveness inborn in man, but to one that has fallen to all
men through historical guilt. Of this Aristotle knows nothing. When
Brandis says: "The doctrine of hereditary sin would not have seemed
foreign to him," inasmuch as he saw very clearly the corruption of
human nature, [84] we think he is quite incorrect. It is true Aristotle
ascribes to the great multitude, and above all to those who are born
for service and labor, an inborn badness, and he describes it in the
strongest colors and as a real insuperable incapacity for true virtue;
and it is under this head that falls the confirmatory utterance cited
by Brandis, namely, that it is good, in the state, to be dependent, and
not to be at liberty to do whatever one may please, "for the liberty to
do what one pleases cannot hold in check the evil that is inborn in all
men" (to en ekasto ton anthropon phaulon) (Pol., vi, 4). Were this to
be taken in its full and unlimited sense, Aristotle would thereby come
into contradiction with his other so definite and repeated declarations
as to the perfect will-freedom of those who are capable of true virtue,
and thus overturn his entire ethical system,--which rests absolutely on
the presupposition of this freedom. The fact is, he is speaking here as
a statesman and not as a moralist, and alludes therein to the great
multitude of those who, though arriving at magisterial offices, are yet
not philosophers nor truly free. Indeed, he expressly says that the
truly good should not by any means be limited by laws, but stand
absolutely above all law; [85] and though he admits that such persons
are very rare, yet he presupposes that there are actually some such.
Now the fact that Aristotle unquestionably excepts the true
philosophers as the elect few, from the otherwise all-prevalent moral
corruption, does not offer any thing similar to the Christian doctrine
of natural sinfulness, but indeed the very opposite,--is not, as the
Christian doctrine, an expression of deep humility, but on the
contrary, of unmeasured pride, as despisingly conscious of a
superiority to the rest of mankind. To make exceptions to the general
prevalence of sinfulness limits not merely the thought of this
sinfulness, but entirely overthrows it; the virtue-merit of the few
chosen ones--and these are of course always the philosophizing
moralists themselves--stands forth all the more glaringly the deeper
the rest of mankind are degraded. It affords no similarity to the
Christian consciousness when, to the few philosophers, that character
is attributed which Christianity ascribes exclusively to the God-man.
To what height the proud self-consciousness of the philosopher, as
pretendedly perfect in his virtue, rises, some idea may be obtained
from the following description of the virtue of magnanimity:
"Magnanimous is he, who, being worthy of great things, esteems himself
as in fact worthy of them. . . . The greatest of out. ward goods is
honor; hence the magnanimous man has to act with propriety in respect
to honor and dishonor. . . . As the magnanimous man is worthy of the
greatest things, he must necessarily be a perfectly good one; to him
belong whatever is great in every virtue; . . . hence it is difficult
to be really magnanimous. . . . In great honors, and honors shown him
by eminent men, the magnanimous man rejoices moderately, as at that
which he deserves, or which even falls below his desert; for, for a
perfect virtue there is no entirely sufficient honor. Nevertheless he
accepts it, because there is no greater one for him. But the honor
shown him by ordinary men, or for inferior things, he disdains, for
they are not worthy of him." After having observed, that in order to
true magnanimity also outward gifts of fortune are requisite, and that
the magnanimous man thinks only very lightly of men and things, and
regards only few things so highly as to expose himself to danger for
them, Aristotle says of him further: "He is inclined to do good, but
disdains to receive benefits, for the former is characteristic of the
eminent, and the latter, of the inferior; and he gives more liberally
in return, for thereby he who was before a creditor is made a debtor.
Also he gladly recollects those to whom he has done favors, but not
those from whom he has received benefits! for the receiver of a benefit
becomes subordinate to him who renders it, whereas he is fond of being
superior to others; therefore he also hears mention, with pleasure, of
the former (his own good deeds), but with displeasure of the latter
(the received benefits); . . . he remains inactive and hesitating when
no great honor or great work is involved; he does only a little, but
that little is great and honor-bringing; . . . he acts boldly and
openly, for he cherishes contempt for others; he speaks the truth, save
when he speaks with irony; and he does this when lie has to do with the
great multitude; . . . he admires nothing, for nothing appears to him
as great. . . . The movements of a magnanimous man are slow, his voice
restrained and his pronunciation measured. For he who is interested in
few things, is not in haste; and he who regards nothing as great, is
not zealous." (Nic., iv, 8, 9). This portraiture of one who, as judged
from a Christian stand-point, is but a courtly fool, is the
virtue-ideal of Aristotle.
A very essential defect of Aristotelian ethics is the falling into the
back-ground of the religious character of the moral; and in this
respect it is far inferior to that of Plato. The moral stands out alone
in entire self-sufficiency, not needing any other ground or basis than
itself; the good is good without reference to God,--is good in and of
itself, and is at the same time the motive of its own realization. That
the moral is essentially God's will, that it brings man into
life-communion with God, that man has an immediate moral life-relation
to God, that piety is the ground and life of all virtue,--of all this
we find in Aristotle but a few very faint and wavering hints. And this
is especially surprising in view of the fact that the world-theory of
Aristotle is, in other respects, by no means inimical to a close
connecting of the moral with the religious, seeing that his God-idea is
a very highly developed one, and that lie derives all life of the world
and of its contents absolutely from the proto-causality of the highest
self-conscious reason, that is, the personal God. It is not so much the
consequentiality of his philosophical system, as the feebleness of the
religious consciousness and life in Aristotle himself, that occasioned
him to develop the religious phase of the moral so imperfectly; he does
not reject this phase, he even alludes to it, but he does not develop
it.
Morality in Aristotle lacks therefore its essential motive; for, in
that he himself expressly and repeatedly declares. against Socrates,
that from the knowledge of the good the willing of the same does not
necessarily follow, but, on the contrary, a contradiction may occur
between willing and knowing, he thereby indeed evidently shows that he
has observed real life with greater impartiality than Socrates, but he
has also thereby rendered impossible any clear understanding of the
moral life. For if knowledge does not invariably result in willing,
what then is the impelling power which calls forth willing, or the lack
of which works non-willing? It is not love, for love appears not as
directed toward the good per se, or toward God as the highest good, but
only toward the individual manifestation, as individual
friendship,--not as a motive to virtue, but as one particular virtue
along-side of many others. The willing of the good springs not from
love, but appears as something entirely independent and unbased,
along-side of knowledge and along-side of love; and for the very reason
that Aristotle knows not the moral power of love, he can discover for
the civic virtue of the great multitude no other motive than fear.
__________________________________________________________________
[84] Arist., ii, p. 1682.
[85] Polit., iii, 13: kata de toiouton ouk esti nomos, autoi gar eisi
nomos
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXII.
After the time of Aristotle, philosophy declined with accelerating
rapidity, degenerating more and more into a shallow popular moralizing,
loosely grouped around a few superficial foundation-thoughts, and
consisting, for the most part, simply in unconnected observations on
isolated topics. The decline of thought manifests itself in a
constantly growing inappreciation of the objective significancy and
validity of the moral idea, which latter assumes more and more an
individually-subjective character, even in cases where it seemingly
subordinates the subject to itself, as in Stoicism,--or subordinates
the same to nature, as in Epicureanism,--and the decline reaches its
lowest point in the total doing away with all general and objective
significancy of the moral idea, in Skepticism.
The moral theories that rise after Aristotle are in no sense vigorous
and truly philosophical products of thought; they are but feeble
out-shoots of the antecedent, more vigorous spirit-life, without bloom
and without fruit. Moreover they stand less closely connected with
Plato and Aristotle than with certain other tendencies of thought that
sprang from the influence of Socrates. On the basis of the Cyrenaics
sprang up Epicureanism; on that of the Cynics, Stoicism; while the last
form of Greek philosophy, also in the sphere of ethics, namely,
Skepticism, may be regarded as a further development of the tendency of
the Sophists.
By Socrates this much was gained, that the moral, rational subject was
recognized in his freedom and rights, that the moral idea in general
had come to consciousness. With Plato and Aristotle, however, this
freedom and this idea are not of a merely individual, subjective
character, but they are brought into relation to the living whole of
rational reality. A course of action is not good for the reason that I
regard it as such, but I must regard it as good because it is good per
se; the moral has essentially a general and objective validity. The
later philosophy holds one-sidedly fast to the position. gained by
Socrates,--makes of the subjective consciousness the highest criterion
of truth, even in moral things, and that too in its individual,
absolutely self-dependent character, apart from any organic union with
the rational whole. The good is good because I recognize it as such. In
this subjectivistic tendency, philosophy turns away from Aristotle and
falls into the channel rather of the earlier schools, but with a still
stronger emphasizing of the subject. Hence also the interest for
general and for natural philosophy grows less, and attention is
concentrated on the subjective, on morality, and this consists now
essentially in subjective opinions; lacking in fundamental ideas, it
becomes feeble, lax, shallow; it comes into the hands of the masses,
and, in this marsh-like out-spreading, it becomes stagnant and
spiritless; in the place of philosophical schools proper we find
hostile parties, as it were, confessional sects of the mass of the
cultured, a party spirit which supplies for these sects the place of
their already-vanished religion; every cultured person sought to belong
to some such philosophical. sect, and he selected and molded it
according to his own taste, and. the choice itself of the school became
really simply a matter of taste.--The original antithesis of Greek
philosophy, as Materialism and Spiritualism, as Ionic and Eleatic
philosophy, which appeared later as the antithesis of the Cyrenaics and
the Cynics, repeats itself, especially in the sphere of ethics, as
Epicureanism and Stoicism; the former regards the spirit as determined
by nature; the latter, nature as determined by the spirit.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXIII.
The doctrine of the Epicureans,--which was widespread among the mass of
the cultured, and which subsequently became even the dominant spirit of
the age, but which still remained without any scientific development,
as, in fact, it was incapable of such,--is the consequential unfolding
of the individual pleasure-principle, the theoretical expression of
irreligion and immorality. The subjective pleasure-feeling is the
highest criterion of truth and of the good; the yielding to natural
proclivities, even the sensuous, and the greatest possible enjoyment of
the present, are the highest virtue,--prudent calculating for prolonged
pleasure, the highest wisdom,--anxious concern as to a future
retribution and a divine world-government, the greatest folly; our
striving an& thinking should regard only this life.
Epicurus, (ob. 271 B. C., see Diog. L., x, 1 sqq.), who stood most
closely related with the school of the Cyrenaics, obtained very soon
for his doctrine--which has so much to recommend itself to
worldlings--a wide acceptance; and while the solid thinking of
Aristotle became almost forgotten, this thought-sparing, self-styled
philosophy continued to spread wider and wider,--formed, in fact, by
far the most numerous of the sects, and sustained itself until long
after the advent of Christ. The more superficial the wisdom, so much
the greater the party that clings to it. This doctrine, as comprehended
in a very few thoughts and forms of expression, soon became fixed and
stationary and received no further development, but nevertheless an all
the wider practical application. From the so wide-spread sect there
have not come down to posterity even the names of self-styled
philosophers of any great eminence, to say nothing of systems of
thought.
Happiness is the highest good, and hence to strive after it the highest
wisdom and morality; all cognition looks to it as its end. For man only
that is true which he feels, which he becomes acquainted with through
the senses, namely, concrete sensuous reality. Whatever transcends this
is at least doubtful, and to fear the doubtful and supersensuous
disturbs happiness. Fear of the gods and of a life after death must
vanish away, for of them we have no knowledge. Sensuous feeling, and
hence the individual pleasure-feeling, is the highest criterion of all
truth, and hence also of the morally-true, the good.. But we feel only
the sensuous, the corporeal, hence only this is for us true and real.
Individual being, and hence multiplicity, is the solely true
existence,--and hence, first of all, the individual subject;
consequently to carry out the rights of the subject is the moral task.
This task looks in no sense whatever to the realizing of a something
transcendent to the individual,--of an idea; man is not to follow an
all-prevalent law, but, on the contrary, his individual nature,--is
not, in any sense whatever, to deny himself, but in fact to cling to
and assert this his particular existence, such as it is. Alan is not an
upholder of a spiritual world, on the contrary, he is himself
absolutely supported and guided by nature,--should merge himself
harmoniously into nature, should therein feel himself well. This
feeling of one's self-well is the chief end of life, and therefore the
solely true measure of the good. Enjoyment is the end; the yielding of
one's self over to one's own naturalness, is the means.
Now, for this manner of life there was of course no great degree of
wisdom requisite; nevertheless direct unconscious desire may lead
astray, and hence it must be guided by considerateness. Man must
consider in each separate case whether an immediately inviting pleasure
is not connected with a subsequent greater pain, and in this case he
must avoid it, or at least confine it within the necessary limits, and
that simply in order to render the pleasure-feeling a lasting one. The
pleasure of the soul is greater than that of the body, because it is
more lasting, and hence it is more to be sought after; however, the
difference is not essential, inasmuch as the soul itself is but a
refined body. Higher than the pleasure which consists in the present
gratifying of a natural impulse, is the pleasure of being satisfied,
that is, when desire and the soul are in a state of comfortable repose;
for this reason a certain degree of temperateness and moderation are
among the conditions of happiness. Hence virtue is indeed an element of
a wise life, not for its own sake, however, but as a means to a higher
pleasure-enjoyment,--even as one takes medicine as a means to health.
Right and wrong, to which the virtue of justness relates, are nothing
per se; right is only the contents of mutual compacts that are entered
into for reciprocal benefit; their violation is the wrong. Where there
are no compacts there is neither right nor wrong, and hence also no
justness or righteousness. Moreover, only so far as it redounds to my
utility, have I to practice justness; and the evil of unjustness is
simply the damage I incur,--especially through judicial infliction.
Friendship is of much value, wedlock-love properly of none at all. From
offices of state the wise man keeps himself aloof; he acquires for
himself wealth as far as practicable, and thus provides for his future.
An essential condition of happiness is the being free from all fear of
spiritual powers--of the gods and their displeasure, of death and a
retribution in the "yon-side." Gods there may indeed be, but as they
are to be conceived of as in a state of bliss, hence they cannot
possibly have any concern for the world and for men. Death does not
fall within the scope of feeling, and hence does not exist for us at
all,--does not concern us in the least. So long as we have feeling,
death does not exist, and when death does exist, then we have no
feeling; hence it disturbs our happiness only when we foolishly harbor
a fear of it. But, that with death, all is over with man, is a matter
of course, as in fact the soul also is but a fortuitous combination of
manifold atoms which, at death, again fall apart. In order to get rid
of the tormenting superstition of a life after death, one needs but to
study physics. The all-comprehending and dominating chief-condition of
happiness is, therefore, prudence,--which in each particular case
chooses and determines the proper measure and the proper means of
pleasure. Man is, consequently, lord of his own fate, and herein
consists his freedom; fortune, as mere chance, has but a minor share in
our destiny. But that perfect happiness is not to be reached in the way
recommended Epicurus knew very well, and he himself depicts the
miseries of humanity in very dark colors; he does not, however, throw
the blame for them upon man, but upon the imperfectness of the
fortuitously-arisen universe itself; and, by this course, he does not
fall out with his system, but in fact finds for it a fresh
justification; the more numerous the miseries to which man, without his
own fault, is exposed, so much the stronger stimulus, and so much the
greater right has he, to strive after the enjoyment of life.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXIV.
The subjectively-idealistic Stoicism which took its start from Zeno,
teaches a morality of conflict,--of struggle on the part of the
rational spirit (as being alone of worth, and as being absolutely a law
unto itself) against sensuousness, of thought against pleasure, as
belonging to a lower sphere. Virtue is the solely true good, and all
other seeming goods are either indifferent or irrational. But this
struggle rests simply on the thought of an unreconciled and
irreconcilable antagonism of existence,--knows not the higher thought
of the inner unity of all veritable existence,--rests on the pride of
the subjective understanding and of the absolutely self-legislating
individual will, over against all objective reality, even over against
a moral commonalty with laws binding on the individual subject.
Stoicism leads, therefore, on the one hand, to an unbounded
virtue-pride, and on the other, to a querulous despising of reality,
also to a disregarding of caprice-checking custom, nay, even to a
suicidal non-esteeming of one's own temporal life,--pretending to an
inner peace, but really betraying evidence of un-peace. Any moral
significance, and any even slight presentiment of absolute ethical
truth, ore to be found only in the more general thoughts of the Stoics;
but all the more dubious, arbitrary, nay, even perverted, is the
particular application of these thoughts to definite life-relations.
Stoicism stands on the one hand incomparably higher in spiritual vigor
and dignity than Epicureanism, and forms a direct antagonism thereto,
but, on the other hand, it passes far beyond the truth in the direction
of the opposite extreme, and its one-sided unnaturalness manifests even
more clearly than Epicureanism the insufficiency of heathen principles
for arriving at true moral wisdom.--Zeno, a contemporary of Epicurus,
illustrated the teachings of his system (see Diog. Laert. viii) by
moral strictness of life, and by the commission of suicide at an
advanced age; his writings are lost. His school, which collected within
itself the nobler class of minds, and which, while less numerous than
that of the Epicureans, yet exhibited far more spiritual activity than
the latter, continued to exist until the downfall of
paganism,--especially among the Romans, where, though much toned-down
and transformed, it was represented not only by the rather eclectic
Cicero, but also by Seneca, [86] by Epictetus (toward the close of the
first century A. D.), [87] and by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus. [88]
On the dualistic antithesis of matter and spirit rests the
corresponding ethical antithesis between merely sensuously-natural
objective existence and the rational spirit in the individual free
subject. Not the mere nature-entity, but the spirit, is the true
entity, and it is such in full, freely self-legislating
self-sufficiency; its destination is to manifest itself as independent
in relation to nature, and to base itself entirely upon itself. Not the
passive, but the active entity is the solely true one,--not enjoyment
but activity; it is only as active that the spirit is in its true
reality, whereas, as merely enjoying, it sinks below spirituality. Man,
as related to objective existence, is a self-poised absolutely freely
self-determining being,--is, as a rational spirit, perfectly
self-sufficient, needs nothing outside of himself in order to be a
spirit, to be free, to be happy; he should not let himself be
determined by any thing whatever external to himself. Whatever is to
have worth for man, and hence is to form a part of, and to contribute
to, his perfection and happiness, must proceed from and depend upon
himself alone; every thing else, whatever it may be, concerns him not,
is indifferent to him,--can, and may, neither hinder nor promote his
perfection and happiness. It is in being self-dependent that the wise
man is truly free.--The essence of man, in distinction from the brute,
is not enjoying and feeling, but thinking; it is not in enjoying, but
in thinking, that he is free, that he is a rational spirit; and the
more he seeks to enjoy external objects and finds pleasure therein, so
much the more is he dependent and unfree, so much the more is he
irrational,. and hence so much the less a true man. Thinking and not
feeling is, therefore, the decisive criterion of the truth and of the
good; hence there should be first judging and then acting. All
rational, and hence moral, activity must rest on knowledge; to act from
mere feeling is irrational; there is no virtue without knowledge.
Philosophy itself is a practice of virtue, and knowledge is the first
and highest virtue. Out of the knowledge of the good springs, of itself
and from inner necessity, pleasure in the good and a striving after it,
just as from a knowledge of the evil springs an abhorrence of the same.
But these movements of the sensibilities are not the ground, but only
the attendants of the moral activity; the ground thereof is knowledge
alone. From erroneous knowledge, however, spring irrational
sensibility-movements and strivings of the soul, that is, the passions,
which are consequently to be regarded as a soul-disease. Now, though
all evil springs from error, yet is man nevertheless responsible
therefor, for the error itself is guiltily incurred. It is by the
knowledge of the good, that is, by perfect consciousness, that volition
is distinguished from impulse or instinct. The will aims at the
truly-known good, impulse at the merely seemingly good. Knowledge, as
an essential manifestation of rationality, is, like the latter itself,
germinally innate in man, and hence it is in all men essentially the
same; simply the further development and the particular application of
the same is left to one's own judgment.
The essence and the fundamental thought of the good is conformity to
nature (homologia, convenientia, to kata phusin, convenienter naturae
vivere). Nature is taken here, not as outer sensuous nature in
contradistinction to the self-conscious spirit, but as the general
order of the world, as the natura rerum, the inner conformity-to-law of
the All, and, above all, the rational nature and conformity-to-law of
one's own spiritual existence and life. Hence conformity to nature is
agreement with one's self--the inner order and spiritual health of the
life. Even the brute puts forth effort primarily not from pleasure and
for pleasure, but for natural self-preservation and self-development.
The true nature of man, however, is not the sensuous nature but the
reason. To live right signifies, therefore, to live according to
reason. Hence evil is a contradiction to the rational nature of man,
and the direct opposite of the good,--differs from the good not merely
quantitatively, but also qualitatively and essentially,--is the
anti-natural and anti-rational.
Virtue is, therefore, in its very essence, a "being well;" hence it has
a feeling of happiness as its immediate and necessary consequence, and
thus it is itself per se the highest good. He who is truly virtuous is
happy in the same manner as God; he who is vicious is necessarily
wretched. Not this happiness-feeling, however, but the good as such, is
the rational end of the moral activity; virtue is to be sought for its
own sake without reference to the happiless-feeling; the
pleasure-sensation is indeed the consequence, but not the end of moral
action. There are, in fact, other pleasure-sensations than those which
flow from virtue, and other pain-sensations than those which follow
from vice; also external things, things not dependent on us and our
free determination, such as health, riches, etc., may excite
pleasure-sensations, and hence contribute to our external happiness.
Now, if the end of our striving were not the good per se, but
happiness, then our effort would be directed toward a something that is
not fully within our power; but nothing can be truly good, and hence
truly to be sought after, which is not dependent upon us and within the
scope of our will. The pleasure which arises independently of us from
external things may be agreeable, and hence these things may be useful,
but real goods they are not. Hence the antithesis of the honestum (to
kathekon, to kalon) and the utile. Thus the happiness and perfection of
the sage rests entirely upon himself; he is the free creator of his
well-being; all that is really good depends solely upon himself; all
that is not dependent upon him affects and disturbs him not. Every wise
man is a rich man, a king.--As the good differs from the evil, not in
degree but in essence, hence all the virtues are essentially equal to
and homogeneous with each other; for a virtue inferior to another could
be possible only by its being somewhat participant in evil; but this is
impossible from its very idea. Hence whoever has one virtue has them
all; and they are all intimately involved in each other. Likewise, all
vices are essentially equal to each other, and, e. g., to kill a cock
needlessly is just as bad as to commit parricide.
From the Stoic notion of the self-based freedom of the sage, as well as
from their view of the essence of virtue, it follows that there may be
entirely perfect men, men who are free of all error and of all
immorality, fully possessed of all knowledge and virtue and happiness.
That there really are such is taken for granted; and delineations of
this self-acquired glory are given in the most glowing colors, and form
a favorite topic of Stoic philosophy. On the other hand, we find not
the least trace of the notion of a natural corruption of mankind; there
is admitted (as was the case in Aristotle's system) simply a difference
between the rude multitude little inclined to, and little capable of,
the good, and the more happily-gifted ones,--the latter being of course
the Stoics themselves; and it is given as an essential characteristic
of a sage, never to repent of any thing. [89] --In consequence of the
diametrical antagonism between good and evil, there is no mean moral
sphere between the two, no sphere of moral indifference. There are
indeed things that are per se indifferent to man, and which can hence
per se neither increase nor diminish his worth and happiness, but their
actual application is in each particular case either good or bad. In
classifying the virtues, the Stoics, for the most part, follow Plato.
Zeno himself based the moral on religion; also some of his disciples
understand by the "nature" with which man is to be in harmony, the
divine contents and the divine conformity-to-law of nature, and hence
that which harmonizes with the divine will; and they conceive of reason
as a manifestation of the divine activity in things. But the later
Stoics, for the most part, lost sight of this religious character of
the moral, and presented it as quite independent of religion,--as a
spiritual life-sphere resting strictly and independently upon itself.
In Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius the religious element comes again more
into the fore-ground; they recognize reverence for the gods, or for
God, as a virtue and as a ground of the moral,--conceive of
virtuousness as God-likeness, and viciousness as godlessness, and even
attribute high worth to prayer, though here, of course, there is no
trace of penitential prayer, but for the most part, only the spirit of
the Pharisee's prayer: "God, I thank thee that I am not as other men."
[90] It is in fact not impossible that in the more religious tendency
of later Stoicism there is a degree of influence from Christianity.
This view of the moral produced in fact among the Stoics an earnest
moral striving, though without enthusiasm or heart, and only in the
manner of a cold logical calculating. Feeling amounts to nothing at
all; of the potency of love there is not a trace; thought passes
directly over into action, and feeling merely accompanies the act as a
something entirely indifferent. The love of neighbor is regarded only
as a mode of action, but not as an affair of the heart. The sage ought
indeed to help the wretched according to his means and according to
their worthiness, but to feel compassion, or even to act as if one felt
it, would be unworthy of a wise man; for the truly wise man is above
all suffering; and the wretched suffer only from lack of knowledge,
because they regard external things, which are not within their own
control, as real goods. [91] The friendliness to man which is so
earnestly recommended by the Stoics flows not from love, and their
patience under received injustice springs only from contemptuous pride.
Hence, while, on the one hand, wrath, revenge, envy, slander, etc., are
condemned as unworthy of the sage, partly because every passive
feeling-movement is immoral, and in part because the sage is too proud
to allow himself to be disturbed by the acts and manners of
others,--yet, on the other hand, it is held as an unworthy weakness to
forgive others for their injustice, for that would be equivalent to
declaring the injustice as indifferent, and to lightly esteeming
justice. [92] The Christian principle, "Forgive and ye shall be
forgiven," has no force for a Stoic, because he believes himself never
to be in circumstances to need forgiveness.
The morality of the Stoics is a constant contest of the spirit against
sensuous nature and against the unspiritual and irrational in the
objective world in general; but as this contest is directed against a
primordial and never entirely-overcomeable antagonism in existence
itself, and hence can never lead to an objective victory, it assumes
consequently not so much an actively outward-working character, as
rather that of a passive resistance against irrational reality. The
sage does not undertake to produce a real world of the moral spirit; on
the contrary, he retreats within himself in proud contempt of the
actual world; only himself, but not the outer world, can he make
perfect;--the real struggle is carried on not by a victory-confident
assaulting of immoral reality, but by a contemptuous turning away from
the same,--by an indifference to pleasure and pain, the depicting of
which is given again and again in endless reiteration. This blunt,
indifferent enduring of pain is not the fruit of a pious faith in a
divine world-government or of love toward mankind, but it is the proud
defiance of the absolutely self-relying subject as against a world
imbued with a primitive and essential irrationality. This indifference
toward all that excites the sensibilities restrains indeed the Stoic
from Epicurean sensuality, but is very far from leading to a true
resistance of one's self; the sensuous is only despised, but not
positively assailed. Stoic ethics requires no severe self-denial, no
fasting, no renunciation of sensual enjoyment; it only requires that
one be moderate and that one place no value on the enjoyment; but after
all, this restraint was, for the most part, but a mere flourishing of
rhetoric;--Seneca accepted, with the greatest suavity, riches upon
riches, which his pupil Nero conferred upon him.
The lightly esteeming of the non-spiritual extends also to the physical
life. The Stoics indeed regard the instinct of self-preservation as a
fundamental impulse of human nature, and as a strictly normal
expression of the law which requires harmony with one's self and with
nature, but it is not inconsistent therewith that they should regard
life itself as an object of indifference--seeing that it is not within
man's own control. Death must not be feared, but must-as a power not
within our control--be despised; and in so far as it is a nature-law,
and one that liberates us from a painful bodily life, it is to be
regarded even with pleasure. The thought of immortality is, in this
connection, regarded merely as a possibility; if the life of the soul
continues on, then the wise man is happy; but if it ceases, then ceases
for him also all pain; in neither case is there the least ground for
fear.--But the Stoic goes still further. The wise man is a free lord
over himself; but in death he is overcome by an external power. It does
not become the sage, therefore, to let the close of his life depend
merely on any such extraneous power; it is but a virtualization of his
own self-dependent freedom, that he should close his life when it
pleases himself, that is, when he has satisfactory reasons therefor. To
the Stoic, suicide is, under certain circumstances, not only allowed,
but even a duty, a heroic virtue. Among the circumstances that justify
suicide, irrespective of self-sacrifice for country or friends, are the
following: great distress, poverty, incurable disease, physical
maiming, and other oppressive afflictions, deprivation of liberty, and
in general, any essential hinderance to living freely and in conformity
to reason, such as infirmity from age; all these are divine hints that
it is time to take one's voluntary departure; "The door is open,"--is a
saying which the Stoic fondly reiterates as an expression of his
perfect liberty, even in regard to the ending of his life. [93] Suicide
is defended with great zeal, and almost with enthusiasm, by Seneca, on
the ground that it is an assertion of the true self-dependence and.
freedom, of man; for this reason man may and should proceed to suicide
even when the above freedom-hindering evils are merely in threatening
prospect, inasmuch as, if he does not, he may in the end be hindered
from the accomplishment of this self-liberation. Only a single way
leads into life, but thousands lead out of it. No one is wretched save
through his own fault; for if misfortune falls upon him, he is at
liberty to depart; life keeps none back. The wise man lives only so
long as life pleases him; the lancing of an artery opens to him the way
to freedom. Death is, after all, unavoidable, why then adjourn it till
the evil day? The foulest death is better than the cleanest slavery;
the prudent man seeks the easiest death; yet if it cannot be otherwise,
he does not shun even a painful suicide. [94] --And the practice
corresponded to the theory. Zeno himself is said to have hanged himself
at an advanced age, because he. had broken one of his fingers; his
disciple Cleanthes starved himself to death because his gums became
sore. The frequent suicides among the Roman Stoics are a matter of
notoriety.--This doctrine and this practice are often regarded as in
conflict with the general view of the Stoics, which, in fact, denies
that pain is a real evil. The inconsistency is only apparent, and
contains, at all events, a very true confession. If man has no higher
consolation against the miseries of existence than the pride of the
self-centered, self-satisfied individual spirit, then it is simply mere
truthfulness when he confesses that he is not equal to the misery of
real life,--that he has not the moral power entirely to overcome it by
morality, and to say with joy, "We glory also in tribulations." The
Stoic knows nothing of an almighty father-love of God, and less still
of any personal guilt; lie lacks the entire basis upon which the
courage of a Christian heart can even grow stronger amid all the
buffetings of life; he rises only to a defiance of the miseries of
reality; but this defiance, seeing that it is not exalted to moral
courage by the pious confidence of a God-thirsting heart, is not equal
to the task of humbly bowing itself under suffering, but only to that
of destroying itself in bitter accusation against the moral order of
the world, and in the consciousness that the real world is not worthy
longer to contain such a sage.
Stoic morality is of a purely individual character, aims only at
virtualizing the free self-dependence and self-sufficiency of the
individual subject. For an objective reality of the moral thought, and
for a moral community-life, the Stoic has no appreciation, and hence
also none for the naturally-moral basis of society, namely,
marriage,--which, in fact, as requiring self-submission to an objective
moral reality, appears as a trammeling fetter for the individual
subject; and it is doubtless only from the striving after the
maintenance of the complete self-sufficiency of the wise subject in the
face of all objective moral reality, that are to be explained the
strangely perverted views of the sexual relations that prevailed among
the Stoics. By them marriage itself was lightly esteemed, and, while
passionate love and lustfulness were condemned, sexual communion
outside of marriage was expressly defended against all criticism; [95]
and of Zeno and Chrysippus, it is made out with a good degree of
certainty, that they required community of wives among the wise, and
that they declared allowable, sexual communion between nearest
blood-relatives (even between parents and children), and also whoredom,
self-pollution and pederasty. [96] It must not be forgotten that in
these opinions--with the exception of incest, which is readily
explainable from their one-sided, calculating spirit,--the Stoics had
the moral consciousness of the Greeks on their side, and that for their
community of wives they were countenanced by the teachings of
Plato.--Also in other respects their moral relations to other men are
neither frank nor pure. The lofty contempt which the sage indulges in
toward all non-sages, disengages him also from many moral duties toward
them; thus he is not under obligation always to tell them the truth;
falsehood is allowable not only in war, to the enemy, but also in many
other cases,--especially in view of attaining an an advantage. [97]
The morality of the Stoic is the pride of the natural man who is
conscious of being a moral creature, but who has no suspicion of a
morality higher than and transcending the individual subject, nor of a
personal moral depravity. His oft-repeated high-sounding descriptions
of self-complacency make any thing but an agreeable impression. This
pride restrains him, it is true, from many unworthy acts; in
consequence, however, of his total lack of an objective standard, it
did not guard him from grave moral errors, nor from an almost fanatical
hate against a higher world-theory, which, at a later period, offered
itself to him in Christianity; and Marcus Aurelius was not in the least
deterred by his so high-sounding discourses on kindness, tolerance, and
charity, from letting loose a fearful persecution upon the
Christians,--in whose martyr-courage he could discover only criminal
obstinacy.--Though Stoic ethics was distinguished from the
essentially-related ethics of the Cynics by the fact that it discarded
the unspiritual and unrefined form of the latter, and that it respected
the spiritual under every phase, and hence also in art, and placed a
high estimate upon the worthy appearance of the body and upon
cleanliness, nevertheless at bottom it does not really transcend the
same. It does not rise beyond the mere formal notion of the moral as a
conformity to nature; the material constructions to be put upon the
contents of the moral idea are left to the subjective discretion of the
individual; and though it really stands higher than Epicurean ethics,
still it did not spiritually vanquish the same. Instead of an
absolutely and objectively valid moral idea, and of the expression of a
divine will, we find only man's subjective knowledge of his own nature;
the contents of the moral law, the Stoic discovers only by the
observation of his own personal peculiarities; and the possibility that
this self of his might be a morally perverted one he does not even
remotely suspect.
__________________________________________________________________
[86] From him are extant numerous moral writings in popular rhetorical
style.
[87] His lectures, for the most part merely popular moral exhortations,
are preserved in Arrian; besides these we have the Enchiridion
Epicteti, Which has been much used even in Christian times.
[88] From him we have Ta eis eauton, (moral meditations)--disconnected,
and, in many cases, merely suggested thoughts and life rules, with much
repetition and without regular development.
[89] Cic.: Pro Muraena, 29.
[90] Arrian: Dissert. Epict., iii, 24, 96 sqq.; iv, 10, 14 sqq., (ed.
Schweigh.); M. Aurel. Ant.: eis eauton, ix, 40.
[91] Epict.: Enchir., 16; M. Anton., v, 36; vii, 43; Diog. L., vii,
123; Cicero: Pro Muraena, c. 29; Seneca: De clementia, ii, 5, 6.
[92] Stobaeus: Eclogae ethicae, ii, 7, p. 190 (Heeren); Diog. L., vii,
123; Cic.: Pro Mur., 29.
[93] Diog. L., vii, 130; Arrian, i, 9, 20; i, 24, 20; i, 25, 18 sqq.;
ii, 1, 20; M. Anton., v, 29; Cic.: De Finibus, iii, 18.
[94] Epist. ii, 5 (17); vi, 6 (58); viii, 1 (70); De ira, iii, 15, (ed.
Fickert).
[95] Epict. Enchir. 33.
[96] Diog. L., vii, 13, 33, 131, 188; Sext. Emp.: Hupotuposeis, iii,
24.
[97] Stob.: Ecl. eth., ii, 7, p. 230 (Heeren).
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXV.
Epicureanism and Stoicism are two diametrically opposed but also
mutually requiring and complementing phases of the Greek spirit; both
are equally one-sided, both are equally remote from the Christian
ethical idea;--both refer all moral truth back to the individual
subject. In the place of Christian morality, the Epicureans offer
joyous voluptuousness; the Stoics offer the high-minded pride of
complete self-righteousness; neither party feels the least need of
redemption, of divine grace; for the Epicureans regard the per se
sinful as right, while the Stoics imagine themselves to have overcome
the same through their pee se pure individual will.
Epicurean ethics emphasizes the nature-phase in man; Stoic the
spirit-phase; the former teaches an unresisting, voluptuous giving-over
of self to sensuous nature, the latter an earnest but only partially
successful resisting of the same; the former is absolutely indifferent
as to moral knowledge,--natural instinct supplies the place of
knowledge; the latter manifests a busy seeking after knowledge, and
esteems it as a virtue; the former is a crude realism,--in all
essential features a materialistic naturalism; the latter is a
one-sided idealism,--in all essential features a ploddingly-calculating
spiritualism; the former bears a feminine character,--is passive,
yielding, lax; the latter bears a masculine character,--is active,
earnest, rigorous; the former suited better the effeminate Ionic tribe
and the Orient, the latter rather the stern Doric tribe and the Romans.
The Epicurean seemingly gives sway to the universal, namely, to nature,
to which the individual subordinates himself; in reality, however, the
individual subject is set free from the bonds of the universal, of the
spiritual, of rationality; the Stoic also seemingly subordinates the
individual subject to a general thought, namely, the moral idea; in
reality, however, also here the universal is made to yield to the
individual subject; in the place of a general moral idea we find,
strictly speaking, only the calculating opinion of the individual; it
is the self-will of the subject in the face of the spiritual objective
world, namely, history, that asserts itself as rational freedom.
According to both systems, therefore, the truth is found only within
the subject; nature and existence in general have value for the
Epicurean only in so far as they can be enjoyed, that is, in so far as
they are for the individual subject,--in every other respect existence
is indifferent; in the eyes of the Stoic, existence is truth only in so
far as it appears in the subject; the sage is the embodiment of the
moral order of the universe, which, apart from him, exists but very
imperfectly. In both systems the higher thought of Plato, namely, that,
by the moral, the real harmony of existence, the harmony between nature
and spirit, is realized, is one-sidedly perverted; the Epicurean
effects this harmony only by sacrificing the rationally-personal spirit
to nature, the Stoic by sacrificing nature to the individual personal
spirit; it is no longer a harmonizing, but a giving up, of one of the
two phases of existence.
Though Stoic ethics is in many respects graver, and more worthy of man
than Epicurean, nevertheless both systems are equally remote from the
Christian view. The Epicurean does not recognize the spiritual
personality as the highest factor; the Stoic does not recognize the
rights of objective reality; but Christianity recognizes both as
absolutely belonging to each other. In both systems, the natural man,
the individual subject, thrusts himself in his fortuitous reality into
the foreground, as having the highest claims; in both the subject is of
himself perfectly competent to attain to all perfection,--as no need,
in this work, either of God or of history; neither has even the
faintest presentiment of the moral significancy of history, of humanity
as a unity. In both, therefore, there is absolutely no humility of
moral self-denial, but either a mere lustful devotion to
world-enjoyment, or a haughty contempt of the external world,--and
hence in neither of them is there the least felt need of redemption;
the sole redemption from the burden, not of guilt but of an evil world
of reality, is, suicide with the Stoic, and sensuous intoxication with
the Epicurean. In neither system is there manifest the least
approximation to the Christian principle,--no progress beyond Plato and
Aristotle, but rather simply the moral consciousness of heathenism in
its incipient dissolution,--which is consummated in Skepticism.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXVI.
The subjectivism that predominated in Epicurean and Stoic ethics finds
its consequential and scientifically-rigorous carrying-out,--and at the
same time Greek and heathen ethics in general, its dissolution and
honorable self-destruction,--in Scepticism, which declares all judging
of good and evil as futile, and all modes of action as
indifferent.--Neo-Platonic philosophy, which seeks to rescue heathenism
as against Christianity, and which perverts Christian ideas to heathen
purposes, presents in its but partially developed ethics little more
than a dreamy mysticism--a quietistic self-merging into the one
universal divine essence; and it is only for non-philosophers that
there is need of a, not scientific but, practical code of morals.
Roman philosophy made no original contributions to ethics. Apart from a
but slightly independent adoption of the doctrines of Stoicism, it
presents nothing more than a feebly eclectic character, and does not
rise beyond superficial calculating observations and opinions.
Skepticism has often been misunderstood not only in its scientific, but
also in its world-historical significancy; it arose gradually and, as
it were, spontaneously, without any one specially prominent founder, as
a protest of the general rational consciousness against the
self-sufficiency and presumption of the previously existing
philosophies,--and, in the sphere of ethics, as the scientific
conscience of heathenism. Subjectivism, when consequentially carried
out, leads inevitably to skepticism. Socrates had contended with moral
earnestness against the subjectivism of the Sophists, and had attempted
to find a solid basis also for ethical philosophy; in this commendable
effort, however, he succeeded as little as did, after him, Plato and
Aristotle and the Stoics. In these efforts they did not rise beyond
mere formal definitions of the moral, and were obliged to derive the
material contents of the same from the primarily merely
fortuitously-determined essence of the individual subject. The sole
thought that leads to a true basing of the moral consciousness, namely,
that the moral is the will of God, was only dimly caught sight of, and
could not in fact, from the heathen stand-point, be carried out with
any degree of certainty. That, now, the vail was torn off from the
false method of taking the finite subject as the criterion and the
infallible source of universally-valid and objective truth, and of
attributing to subjective opinion an absolutely valid objective
significancy, and that subjectivism was exposed in all its nakedness
and invalidity,--this was the scientific service of Skepticism,--which,
having shown traces of itself as early as in the age of Aristotle
(Pyrrho), attained to greater prevalence in the century before Christ
(AEnesidemus of Alexandria), and fully developed itself in the second
century after Christ (Sextus Empiricus), and thus like a devouring rust
gradually undermined the last self-confidence of heathen philosophy,
save in so far as it did not seek refuge. behind the mystical nebulae
of Neo-Platonicism.
Skepticism is in fact simply the product of the antithesis between
Epicureanism and Stoicism. The former said: the feeling of pleasure and
displeasure alone decide as to the morally-good; the latter said: not
feeling but thinking decides; Skepticism lets the two cancel each
other, and says: neither feeling nor thinking is capable of any real
decision as to what is good. Man cannot at all know what is per se
good; all our feelings, experiences and thoughts have merely and
exclusively a subjective significancy,--furnish no truth in regard to
things per se. This is not a mere feeble courting of doubt, not a mere,
"I know not whether this or that is good," but a decisive, "I know
positively that I cannot know it, and I know also that there is nothing
that is per se good;" and this knowledge of the lack of knowledge is
the true wisdom and the true virtue. What is good or not good is
determined solely by civil law and by adopted custom, and there is no
occasion for seeking for another or higher basis therefor. Nothing is
per se, and in its essence good or evil. This consideration furnishes
the basis for true soul-repose and happiness,--seeing that we then need
no longer be disturbed by feelings of desire or of disgust, but that we
look upon every thing with calm indifference. The true and highest good
consists therefore in this, that we be absolutely indifferent toward
all things that are usually regarded as goods. As, on one occasion,
during a storm, Pyrrho saw some swine very unconsciously devouring
their food, he is said to have exclaimed: "The wise man must also be
equally imperturbable!" If there were any thing that is good or evil
per se, all men would be found to see it; whereas in fact the judgments
of men differ in all things, and the opposing philosophic schools
proclaim the most opposite things as good or evil. The truth is, that
in every case, the judgment as to good or evil is determined by the
spiritual or bodily peculiarity of the person judging, and hence gives
no certainty as to the essence of the thing per se, but is always
simply indicative as to what chances to seem good or evil to him. Hence
a science of the moral, a system of ethics, is absolutely impossible,
and all teaching as to the moral is futile. But, as now,
notwithstanding this, it is necessary to live and act in some manner,
so it is most advisable to act according to the existing laws and
customs,--not, however, because they are good, but because this course
is most advantageous.--Though Sextus Empiricus,--who has said most on
this head,--does not show his best powers on the field of ethics, yet
it is not to be denied that his attacks against the results of all
previous ethics contain much truth, and that from the heathen
stand-point the Skeptics were, on the whole, justified in their doubts.
Their skepticism gives evidence of a significant self-consciousness in
heathen science; and even though its results were unsatisfactory, still
there was need of just such a radical sifting and exposure in order to
bring to sober reflection the falsely-secure and self-deluding spirit
of heathenism, and to render it more receptive for a better-founded
world-theory.
Neo-Platonic ethics can hardly be regarded as a genuine phase of Greek
thought proper. Entering the lists in antagonism to the new world-power
of Christianity for the purpose of rescuing heathenism, mingling
together into a nebulous conglomerate all the fragmentary notions of
Oriental and Occidental religions and philosophies, and supplementing
them with Christian thoughts, Neo-Platonic philosophy manifests also in
its but crudely-formed ethics little more than the distressful features
of a spirit slowly and painfully dying of the mere senility of age,--a
spirit which, without considerate choice of its means, is feverishly
possessed with the one desire of arousing up by artificial
nerve-stimuli its already half-dead life-forces to one last desperate
up-flickering into life,--a tragically-grand desperation-effort of a
mortally-wounded combatant,--the titanic rebounding of the spirit of
antiquity when pierced through the heart by the arrow of a higher form
of truth; (Plotinus, the greater disciple of Ammonius Saccas, the
founder of the school, living mostly in Rome, ob. A. D. 270; his
disciple Porphyry, ob. A. D. 304; Proclus, who lived mostly at Athens,
ob. A. D. 485--the last philosopher of Occidental heathenism.)
Deviating from all previous Greek philosophy, the Neo-Platonists place
the idea of God in the fore-ground, and deduce from it, and bring in
relation to it, all principles of morality. But this God-idea itself is
further remote from the Biblical idea of God than is even that of Plato
and Aristotle. God is no longer the infinite personal Reason, but the
absolutely undetermined abstract Unity, which unfolds itself, in
Pantheistic emanation, into the world of multiplicity,--which world is
consequently not a separate reality different from God, but simply the
shadow of God himself,--the reverse-side of the divine, the fading-away
of the pure divine light, and hence of essentially negative
essence.--Now as all knowledge must aim at beholding all things in God
and God in all things, hence also all moral activity is directed
exclusively to this one end, namely, to unite one's self with God, to
press one's self out of the world of plurality, to renounce one's self
as an individual being, to wish to be and actually to be nothing more
than a transient phase of the alone truly-existing unitary divine
essence. The moral activity aims not at the producing of a real world
of the good different from God,--aims not at realizing any thing which
is not already real and perfect from eternity, but, on the contrary,
aims at reducing back the soul from its immersion in the world of
reality into the solely and the alone-existing good, that is, into God.
God is not merely the highest good, but in fact the absolutely sole
good; and whatever is different from God is, in so far as it is so, not
truly good. Hence the sole path of salvation is the return from
plurality to unity, and the first and most essential condition thereto
is the beholding of God, an indulging in a mystical speculation, which
is possible only in that one forgets one's self,--spiritually dies
away,--so as to permit God alone to prevail. The more I am a particular
self-hood claiming personality, so much the more remote am I from God.
Morality consists, therefore, not in a developing of this personality,
but in a suppressing of it, not in a becoming like God, but in fact in
becoming God himself. The self-conscious personality is not the
God-like, but the God-foreign; for God himself is not a personality--is
not this or that--has no manner of determinateness, but is that which
is sublime above all determinateness, all quality, and hence also above
spiritual personality; whatever is in any manner determined is not God,
but has gone out from God, and hence is, in so far, extra-divine; and
the same path which reality has traversed in passing firom undetermined
unity to manifoldly-determined plurality, morality traverses again in
the' opposite direction,--passes back from plurality and
determinateness to the unitary and undetermined. In all these phases of
thought, an Indian influence is unmistakable.
As true cognizing is not dialectical but contemplative, namely, a
spiritual beholding of God, so also true morality is not an
outward-going activity, but rather a non-acting, a restraining of
active volition, a dissolving of all particular personal volitionating
into the one divine essence. Whoever has the highest good needs and
wishes for no other good. But the highest good exists in no sense
whatever apart from God, in the world, but solely in the
reality-transcending and indeterminate God. For such an outward
working, such a creating of a real kingdom of the good, there is no
occasion whatever; for all that really exists is good already in so far
as it is the divine essence, and hence cannot be an object of change or
resistance; and in so far as it is the divine essence as
self-estranged, it is evil, and hence should not be loved and
confirmed; there remains, therefore, for the moral activity no other
work than simply to withdraw itself from the world and, not so much
into itself as much rather, into God. Hence there is no need of
striving, of combatting, and of laboring, but only of reposing; to the
eternal keeping-silence, the eternal repose, of God, corresponds the
silent repose of the sage and moral man. Active virtue is not the
highest form of morality, but is only a praiseworthy moral quality of
such as have not yet risen to the stage of true wisdom,--Such are the
chief fundamental thoughts of this Neo-Platonic philosophy, the
influence of which made itself felt as late as in the Christian
mysticism of the Middle Ages. On the whole, we could not properly
expect from this last attempt of heathen philosophy at
self-preservation, any rigorous consequential carrying-out of
fundamental principles; and hence we in fact often find thoughts in it
which but imperfectly harmonize with it as a system. Still, the most of
these seemingly irreconcilable views are doubtless to be accounted for
in the light of the distinction which it made between wisdom proper
(which is attainable only for the elect few) and the moral instruction
of the populace at large. For the latter there is in fact need of other
moral precepts, seeing that men at large are not yet in such a
condition as to be able, through beholding and yielding, to merge
themselves into the absolutely One.
Roman philosophy, though enjoying high repute in the Middle Ages, and
even as late as in the last century, has, however, for the
philosophical development of the science of ethics scarcely any
significance. The Stoic Romans did little more than indulge in general
popular discussions on the philosophy they had adopted from the Greeks;
the Epicurean Romans simply applied their views practically. Cicero is
simply a discreet Eclectic, though without speculative genius. He
discusses moral questions in clear but superficial processes of
reasoning, without finding for them a firm philosophical ground, or a
really scientific solution. The rhetorical form of his
ethico-philosophical writings does not redeem them from that
tediousness which inheres in any verbose display of unprofound
observations. Zealously opposing Epicureanism, Cicero holds fast in
general to the Stoic system, modifying it with Platonic, Aristotelian
and other elements, and this too not without many instances of
misunderstanding. His most important ethical work is his De officiis,
which is based mostly on the Stoic Panaetius. In this work he examines,
first, the notion of the morally-good (honestum), then that of the
useful (utile), and the mutual relation of these so often conflicting
principles. The "useful" he finds to be only seemingly different from
the good; the fact is, whatever is good is also useful, and whatever is
truly useful is also good, not, however, for the reason that it is
useful, but the converse; hence to strive after the good renders
necessarily at the same time also happy. Of the other writings of
Cicero, belong also here the Quaestiones academ., the Disputationes
Tusculanae, and his essays: De senectute, De amicitia, De legibhus, De
finibus.--Cicero blames, in the Stoics, that they conceive of the good
only partially, that they regard not the entire man, but only his
spiritual phase, and lightly esteem the corporeal, so that in fact
while professing to follow nature they do not do her justice,--that
they place on an equal footing all the virtues as well as all the
vices, and admit no intermediate gradations, and also that because of
their one-sidedness they involve themselves in many contradictions.
Though finding the source of the moral consciousness in reason,--which
is an efflux from the divine reason, and by which therefore we become
like God,--he yet derives ethics only in a very slight degree from the
essence of reason itself, but rather from the experience of life. From
this lack of a firm philosophical foundation, we can understand why
Cicero placed an especially high value on his discussion upon the
collision of duties. On the condition of a real deduction of the
various forms of duty from one fundamental principle, there would be no
possible place for such a discussion; but to the moralist who takes his
starting-point from empirical observation, this field appears as of
especial difficulty and importance. The question: Which of several
morally good actions which cannot be reconciled with each other is to
be chosen as the better? Cicero answers very unsatisfactorily and
unphilosophically, on the mere ground of the social comfortableness
resulting therefrom (De off., i, 43 sqq.). Nor does he succeed in all
his sonorous periods on universal benevolence, etc., in rising beyond
the narrow views characteristic of heathen ethics.--Plutarch, a Greek
with Roman education (about A. D. 100,) furnishes in his numerous moral
writings many good observations on the moral lifes and gives evidence
of a noble disposition of soul, though he does not rise beyond popular
essays and observations, relating for the most part to particular moral
topics,--gives neither a system, nor rigorous, clear principles. In
general he follows Plato, and rejects the extremes both of Epicureanism
and Stoicism.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
B.--OLD-TESTAMENT AND JEWISH ETHICS.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXVII.
The ethics of the Old Testament presents, in its entire essence, a
direct contrast to all heathen ethics. Without systematic form and
without scientific development, it is yet perfectly self-consistent in
its ground, its essence and its end. In harmony with the idea of God as
a spirit absolutely independent of nature, and himself omnipotently
conditioning the whole sphere of nature, the ground of all morality is
absolutely and exclusively God's holy will as revealed to the free
personal creature; the essence of the moral is free, loving obedience
to the revealed divine will; the ultimate end of morality is the
realizing of perfect God-likeness, and hence also of perfect
God-sonship and bliss, not merely for the individual, not merely for
the people Israel, butt for all humanity,--and hence the realization of
a humanity-embracing kingdom of God; the most immediate historical end,
however, is to impart a knowledge of the need of redemption from
depravity as incurred by the sin of man himself. Hence the law appears
in fact predominantly, not as an inner natural one, but as a purely
positive, objective, historically-revealed one, in order that man may
become conscious of his natural estrangement from the truth. In this
form it does not have an ultimately definitive, but a transitory and
essentially disciplinary end; and the realization of the kingdom of God
can only be prepared for, but not fully accomplished, by the Israelitic
people; it is a morality of hope.
As in the presentation of Christian ethics, further on, we shall have
to glance in considerable detail also at its historical antecedent,
namely, Old Testament ethics, hence we need here give only the general
characteristics of the latter. [98]
The antagonism of the moral idea of the Old Testament to the views of
collective heathenism, is radical and fundamental; there is here no
shadow of a transition from the latter to the former. Pre-Christian
revealed ethics dld not, however, have a scientific, systematic form,
and indeed could not have it, inasmuch as the key to its correct
understanding was to be given only in the days of the Messiah, and as
the Hebrews were not to be a perfect, independently-developed nation,
but to find their full truth only in Christianity.--The Hebrews do not
undertake to find the ground of the moral consciousness in the human
spirit itself, for the man whom they know as real is no longer the pure
image of God,--has no longer the unobscured natural consciousness of
God and of the moral,--and even unfallen man needed to be awakened to
this consciousness by the revelation of Gold. The entire ground of the
moral consciousness is therefore sought in God's positive revelation to
man, as indeed the ground of the moral on the whole is absolutely the
holy will of God,--not as an abstract law immanent in, though partially
hidden from, human reason, but as an express command of the personal
God and made known to man by a historical act of revelation. God speaks
and man hearkens; and the moral activity is in its entire essence a
child-like obeying of the divine command made upon man. Here there is
no longer any room for a doubt, unless it be a sinful one,--no need of
a philosophical analysis. In case there is need in particular
conjunctures for a more definite decision, then God gives it himself,
either directly, as with the patriarchs and the divinely-called and
enlightened prophets, or, mediately, through the sa-me, or indeed also
through specific signs, such as the lot [Num. xxvi, 55, 56; xxxiii, 54;
xxxiv, 13; Josh. vii, 14 sqq.; xiii, 6; xiv, 2; xviii, 6 sqq.; xix, 1
sqq.; xxi, 4 sqq.; 1 Sam. x, 20 sqq.; Prov. xvi, 33; xviii, 18], the
high-priestly Urim and Thummim [Ex. xxviii, 30; Num. xxvii, 21; 1 Sam.
xxiii, 6 sqq.; xxviii, 6; xxx, 7, 8; comp. 2 Sam. ii, 1; v, 19, 23
sqq.], and others [1 Sam. xiv, 8 sqq., comp. Gen. xxiv, 12 sqq.]. The
command of God to man presents itself in a strictly positive definite
form: "thou shalt," "thou shalt not," "thou mayest."' For any other
reason than God's will, man has no right to ask; he is simply to
believe the word of God--this alone leads him to righteousness. To
personal free self-determination and maturity, man is to attain simply
and solely through child-like faith-obedience to the word of the
Father. He who questions and hesitates where God speaks, cannot
possibly be moral, since he is lacking in faith. Unhesitating,
unreluctant, joyous submission to God's definite command, is the
beginning, the end and the essence of all morality. Types of such
faith-obedience are Noah [Gen. vi, 22; vii, 5], Abraham [xii, 4],
Jacob, Moses, Samuel, David, and others. The simple fact that God wills
it, is the absolutely sufficient reason; the fear of God is the
beginning of wisdom. The antecedent condition of the moral, as lying in
the bosom of man himself, is, however, the image of God--the pure
knowledge and the untrammeled will of moral freedom. Man should, but he
is not compelled; his salvation is placed within his own hand; the
thought, "If thou hearkenest to my word, it shall go well with thee,"
pervades the entire Old Testament from beginning to end. Between God
and man there subsists an absolutely personally-moral relation. Even as
God, as the true and perfect personality, is the holy prototype of all
morality, and as the simple thought of this God is directly presented
as the perfectly sufficient ground for all moral life: "Ye shall be
holy, for I the Lord your God am holy" [Lev. xi, 45; xix, 2], "I am the
almighty God, walk before me and be thou perfect" [Gen. xvii, 1],--so
also is man's complete personality recognized and respected by God even
in the already sin-corrupted race. God does not himself immediately
work all willing and acting in man, does not force him to obedience,
but He makes a covenant with man, with his people,--comes as a holy
personality into moral relation to man as a free moral personality. The
fulfillment of the covenant-promise is conditioned on the
covenant-fidelity of man.
The purpose, the goal of the moral is not the merely individual
perfection of the moral subject, but it is, on the one hand, the
salvation and perfection of the whole human race,--a thought entirely
unknown to heathendom--and, on the other, the full and blissful
life-communion of the person with God; "I will be your God, and ye
shall be my people" [Lev. xxvi, 12; Jer. vii, 23];--not merely the
individual subject but the moral community, the people of God (entire
humanity is to become this people), is to be received into this
communion with God.
Immediately upon the creation of man the thought of the moral presents
itself clearly and definitely [Gen. i, 26-ii, 24]. (1.) The objective
presupposition of the moral is presented, namely, the living personal
God as the prototype of man and of his life, and nature as good and
normal and as existing independently over against man,--and, then, the
subjective presupposition, namely, man as a personal spirit like unto
his Creator.--(2.) The goal of morality as a task, a duty, namely, the
realizing and completing of the divine image, is expressed under one of
its phases, as the dominion of man over nature; this implies the
realization of free personal spirituality in likeness to God--the
legitimate "being as God." In the strong emphasizing of this dominion
over nature, (so utterly in contrast to all actual experience,) there
is plainly indicated the ideal essence of the moral task; its full
realization however is not to be attained to at once, but is the final
goal, and lies in the future. In striking contrast to all heathen
views, according to which man is either absolutely subject to nature,
or at least has nature before him as a cramping, and
never-entirely-to-be-overcome power, we have here the true relation of
the rational spirit to nature, namely, his complete freedom, his
destination to entire mastery over it, that is, we have the full
personality of man as the key-stone of the collective morally-religious
world-theory. That this dominion of the spirit over nature is not to be
a childish magical interfering with nature, is evident from the simple
fact that man is called to it only as being an image of the
nature-dominating God, and that immediately before and after his call
thereto the God-established permanent regularity of nature is alluded
to as in some sense a right of nature, and that man is at once directed
to the orderly and conserving culture of nature [ii, 15]. The dominion
over nature is not the entire goal of the moral striving, it is,
however, a very expressive suggestion of, the same, and is within the
comprehension of the child-like and as yet immature spirit.--(3.) The
legitimate freedom of choice and its enjoyment are guaranteed to man as
a right, in the sphere of the discretionary [i, 28-30; ii, 16].--(4.)
The unambiguous declaration is made that morality is not a something
belonging merely to the individual person, but that on the contrary man
can accomplish his task only as a member of a moral community; it is
not good that man should be alone; he ought not to remain in isolation,
but should form a part of a family, should enter into association with
moral humanity, and it is only on this condition that the good is truly
realizable for the subject.--(5.) In the anticipatory allusion to the
observance of the Sabbath as based on the divine example [ii, 2, 3] is
presented the ideal phase of human activity,--the re-collecting of the
personal spirit from the distractions of the outer life into the calm
of meditation; man is not at liberty completely to merge himself into
earthly temporal cares,--should constantly have before him, in all his
temporal activity, also the eternal as the true and highest good. The
heathen either buries himself up in temporal activity and enjoyment, or
contemptuously turns himself entirely away from the same; the saint of
the Old Testament lives and acts in God's good-created world, but does
not merge himself into it,--withdraws himself from it into the Sabbath
repose of a heart in communion with its God. In the simple feature of
Sabbath observance itself, Old Testament morality presents itself in
sharp and definite contrast to all heathen ethics, and places the moral
task of man higher than the latter.
Hebrew ethics, however, does not linger, as was almost exclusively the
case with heathen ethics, in the purely ideal sphere,--in the
consideration of the good per se,--does not conceive of evil as a mere
possibility or as a merely exceptional or isolated reality, or as a
nature-necessity back of all human guilt (which are all, in fact,
heathen views)--but looks evil earnestly and squarely in the face, and
regards it as a sad, all-prevalent reality, the guilt of which lies in
the free act of man, and is participated in by all without exception.
The morality of the chosen people of God looks, therefore, not merely
to a warding off and an avoiding of evil as a something as yet external
to our heart, and merely threatening us, but to a zealous, constant
combating of the same, not outside of us in an originally defective
world, but within in the inmost guilt-laden heart of the subject
himself. Sin is of historical origin,--an historical reality and power;
and morality, the nature of which presents itself now quite
predominantly as a vigorous combating against sin, appears also itself
in a uniformly historical character,--is promoted and guided by a
divine history-chain of ever richer-unfolding gracious guidances, and
gives rise to a moral history, to a redemption-history, to a kingdom of
God here upon earth inside of humanity,--at first, in faith and hope,
and afterwards (after it has reached the goal promised by God from the
very start, and embraced by the people with pious confidence, and kept
constantly in view) in full, blissful reality. Heathenism knows indeed
evil, knows vice, but it does not know sin, for sin is of a
morally-historical character; hence it knows also of no historical
overcoming of the same, no expecting, no preparing for, nor realization
of, a kingdom of God in humanity; the Persians alone have an obscure
presentiment thereof, perhaps not without a ray of light received from
the people of God, with whom they were in contact, and whom, from their
residence among them, they learned highly to esteem.
On the entrance of sin into the world there arises at once a separation
among men between those who permit themselves to be fettered by sin and
those who retain God and his salvation in view, between the children of
the world and the children of God; God, however, looks in compassionate
love also upon the former and plans for them a redemption, the
world-historical preparation of which is confided to that people which
He separates out from among the men of sin, and paternally guides; God
separates to himself the man of faith,--him who trusts in God with
rock-like firmness and cheerfully and unconditionally obeys his word
even where he is unable to comprehend it and where it diametrically
contradicts his own natural consciousness. God places before Abraham,
from the very start, not a merely personal, but a world-historical
goal: "In thee shall all the families of the earth be blessed" [Gen.
xii, 3], and he repeats this promise again and again in progressively
more definite features; as in Adam all die, so in Abraham are all
nations to be blessed and to be brought to the Accomplisher of
Salvation. For the first time in the history of humanity we find here,
and in contrast to all heathendom, a definite world-historical goal of
the moral life; not man, but God has established it in compassionating
grace, and has sealed it in successive and progressively richer
promises; and an individual man is elected to co-operate in the
fulfilling of this promise, which is not given to him as an individual
but to humanity,--to cooperate in such a sense as that this man, that
this people itself, may become capable of really participating in the
fruit of the redemption accomplished by the act of grace,--by becoming
the maternal womb which is to bear and give birth to the Saviour. But
the individual has part in this moral work only when he accepts the
promise in faith, and it is only when he accepts the promise in faith,
and only on the basis of this faith, that he is able to attain to true
obedience of life.
This people, so strictly cut off from all the rest of the race, this
people hated, oppressed, down-trodden by the rest of mankind, becomes
thus, from the very beginning, of world-historical significance, in a
much higher sense than any other pre-Christian people. The heathen
nations which actively entered into and shaped history sought only
themselves but not humanity; the Israelitic people, shut up exclusively
to the promise and to faith,--a people already spiritually developed
and molded into a moral organism before it had as yet where to lay its
head, and which was as yet seeking its earthly home,--a spiritual
people without any nature-basis, and which received its earthly home
only as a gracious gift of God, conferred on moral conditions [Lev.
xxv, 23],--this people, in its God-willed and commanded separation from
all heathen nations, in its so often, even up to the present day,
reproached "particularism," was, after all, absolutely the only people
which had in view, from the beginning, the true "universalism,"
(namely, the salvation of collective humanity), as its highest goal,
and which sought to do nothing else than to prepare the way for this
salvation of humanity [Gen. xii, 3; xviii, 18; xxii, 18; xxvi, 4; Deut.
xxxii, 43; 1 Chron. xvi, 23, 28; Isa. ii, 2 sqq.; xi, 10 sqq.; xxv, 6
sqq.; xlii, 1, 6; xlv, 20, 22, 23; xlix, 6; lii, 15; liv, 3; lv, 5; lx;
lxi, 11; lxii, 2; lxv, 1; lxvi, 18 sqq.; Jer. iv, 2; xvi, 19; Amos ix,
11, 12; Hag. ii, 7 (8); Zech. ii, 11; vi, 15; viii, 20 sqq.; xiv, 16;
Micah iv, 1 sqq.; Mal. i, 11; Psa. ii, 8; xviii, 49; lxvii, 2; lxxii, 8
sqq.; lxxxvi, 9, 10; xcvi, 7, 10; cii, 15; cxvii, 1]. The Israelites
had therefore, from the very beginning, the deepest interest for
history, and for the goal of history as clearly presented by prophetic
promise; the divine prophetic benedictions upon the patriarchs relate
much less to their own person than to the history of humanity as
proceeding from them; the Hebrew is clearly conscious that all his
moral striving contributes to conduct the God-guided current of history
to the God-promised realization of salvation; instead of the gloomy,
despairing tragic consciousness of the most highly cultured of all the
heathen nations, we find here a full confidence in the ultimate
fulfillment of the redemption longed-for by man and promised by God.
The Israelites have and could have this high world-historical mission
only because they were made to conceive of themselves from the very
beginning as, not a nature-people, but as a spiritual people which
obtained for itself its natural prosperity only through moral fidelity.
As the people of God, they name themselves not Hebrews, from their
natural descent, nor yet from Abraham, nor from Isaac, nor indeed from
Jacob's first name, but from his later God-given name, Israel, which he
received after he had wrestled with the angel [Gen. xxx, 24 sqq]. From
Abraham and Isaac descend also other tribes, which do not belong to the
people of God; only Jacob's descendants belong all thereto. Nor is
Jacob the progenitor of the people of God in his earlier self-willed
and self-confiding life, but solely in his spiritually-transformed
life, after that, praying and beseeching, he had wrestled, in bitter
repentance, with Jehovah as offended at his many sins and deceits, and
after that, in self-denying humility having put off all
self-righteousness, he had thrown himself child-like at the feet of God
and confided all his well-being to His blessing. It becomes the people
of Israel, as a spiritual people, to have also a spiritual and not a
merely natural man as their father, and the true bearing of this father
to God is expressed in the words: "I will not let thee go unless thou
bless me." Whoever would belong to this spiritual people of God must
divest himself of all his mere naturalness; this is symbolized by the
covenant-token of the people with God, circumcision.
The Israelite, in his moral strivings, has the highest good hopefully
and confidently in view, and not for the individual person alone, but
for humanity.-- The idea of the highest good, the fundamental thought
of all morality, has, in the Old Testament history, a very distinct
development. It appears in God's promises, on the one hand, as a grace,
and, on the other, as a reward for trusting fidelity,--neither of which
is by any means to be separated from, or regarded as contradictory to,
the other. In the first blessing after the creation, as we have already
seen, the thought of the highest good is already indicated; by sin,
however, the blessing is changed into a curse, the highest good is
thrown into the far distant, and is only obscurely alluded to in the
promise of the ultimate victory of the seed of the woman over the seed
of the serpent [Gen. iii, 15], and henceforth the thought of the
highest good is associated with the victory over evil, with redemption.
And though mankind,--originally destined to possess the whole earth
[Gen. i, 28; Matt. v, 5],--receive now merely in small numbers, as
members of the people of God, only a very small space of the earth for
their possession, yet is also this typical foretaste of the possession
of the highest good associated at the same time with promises of
victory over the sin-symbolizing heathen inhabitants thereof; the
highest good even in its feeblest foretastes is conditioned on trustful
struggle and victory. In the blessing upon Noah [Gen. ix] there are
indicated as the highest good, in the first place, the multiplication
of the human race through Noah, and the dominion over nature (now,
after thle fall into sin, under a somewhat changed form), and, then, in
the express covenant of God with Noah, the full personal communion of
believing man with God. To Abraham, the prophetic benediction is
essentially enlarged, including the multiplication of his family under
God's guidance, the guaranteeing of an earthly father-land as a gift of
God, and the blessing of entire humanity through the people of God as
springing from him. God had expressly called Abraham away from his
natural father-land; he is to receive another one in its stead, one
that is morally acquired from God's hand through believing submission
to God; all earthly good is to bear also a spiritual character, is to
be an outgrowth from spiritual good; even the most natural earthly
good, the home, is to be obtained as a grace in reward of faith.
Homeless upon earth for several centuries, the people Israel are to
find, first, their eternal home, so as, then, after having been trained
by God's hand, and ripened for his service through sufferings and
submission, to receive an earthly one as a gift of grace; and this home
is to be for them a symbol of the eternal one, a shadow of the highest
good. Even in the first promise to Abraham, there beams out through
this earthly good a faint gleam of the heavenly one: "in thee shall all
families of the earth be blessed;" Abraham is to be, not merely by his
example of faith, but also really, by his family, the beginning of a
kingdom of God for entire humanity; to be himself in this kingdom of
blessing, and this kingdom in him, this is, for him, the highest good.
Exactly similar promises of temporal and likewise spiritual goods, God
gives to Isaac and to Jacob [Gen. xxvi, 3-5; xxviii, 13-15; comp. xxxv,
9-11; xlviii, 4]; Isaac's blessing upon his son Jacob relates, it is
true, primarily only to temporal good [xxvii, 28, 29]; xxviii, 3, 4],
but nevertheless with allusion to the higher good. It is true, temporal
well-being [Gen. xxxix, 2, 3, 5, 23; Lev. xxvi, 3 sqq.; Deut. v, 29;
vi, 3, 18, 24; vii, 13 sqq.; viii, 6 sqq.; xi, 9 sqq., 21 sqq.; xii,
28; xv, 4-6, 10; xxviii, 1 sqq., comp. Psa. lxxxi, 13, 14], and a
continuance in the land, and long life [Exod. xx, 12; xxiii, 26; Deut.
iv, 40; v, 33; vi, 2; xxx, 2 sqq.; xxxii, 47], are very often
presented,--not indeed with reference merely to the individual, but
also to the nation, as a divine blessing for pious fidelity,--as a high
good and end; but as early as at the time of the actual conclusion of
the covenant of God with the people on Sinai, the highest good appears
as of a spiritual character: "If ye will obey my voice indeed and keep
my covenant, then ye shall be a peculiar treasure unto me above all
people; for all the earth is mine; and ye shall be unto me a kingdom of
priests and a holy nation" [Exod. xix, 5, 6]; the highest blessing is
the peace of God [Num. vi, 26; Psa. xxix, 11], the love of God, the
compassion of God, and his covenant with men [Deut. vii, 9, 12, 13;
xiii, 17, 18], so that they "may live long" [Deut. v, 33] and that God
might be their "righteousness" [vi, 25]; and in the first commandment:
"I am the Lord thy God, thou shalt have no other gods before me" [Exod.
xx, 2, 3], the objective phase of the highest good is definitely
expressed; any thing else, save God, that man might regard as the
highest good, is in fact but a worthless idol; and hence the rejection
of the covenant of grace works an everlasting rejection of him who
rejects it [1 Chron. xxviii, 9].
In view of this high spiritual conception of-the highest good, it
appears as in the highest degree a surprising fact that the thought of
a life after death is not directly brought to bear upon the moral
life,--is not presented as a motive of action, or as a phase of the
highest good,--a peculiarity that is all the more striking when we
consider that the children of Israel had lived for four centuries in
Egypt, and that Moses had been educated in the wisdom of this country,
where precisely this thought of immortality very powerfully shaped the
entire moral and religious life, and when we further consider that this
thought itself was most unquestionably recognized among the children of
Israel [Gen. v, 24; xv, 15; xxv, 8; xxxvii. 35; xlix, 26, 29, 33; Deut.
xxxi, 16; xxxii, 50; 1 Sam. xxviii; Job xxvi, 5; 2 Kings ii; Psa. xvi,
10; xlix, 15; Prov. xv, 24], as it would also be naturally presumable
that a people which places so high a value upon the personality, could
not be ignorant of this thought, which so largely prevailed throughout
heathendom. This manifestly intentional placing in the back-ground of
the thought of immortality as bearing upon the moral life, is to be
explained from the peculiarity of the purpose which God had with this
nation, in view of the salvation of mankind.--(1.) The people of Israel
is a world-historical one as no other ante-Christian people was; the
entire hopes and striving of the nation are directed toward the
ultimate salvation of the human race as the highest goal; the primarily
feeble, but constantly more definite-growing Messianic thought throws
temporarily into the back-ground the interest in future life of the
individual person. The entire hope of Israel looks forward to the
highest good, the true salvation, but this highest good consists, even
for the pious Israelite, only in the future redemption that is to be
accomplished by a world-historical divine act; the Redeemer had first
to spring from the line of David before the life after death could have
real worth for the saint, or be his highest good; before this event,
the transmundane life was a beclouded one, not only for the
consciousness, but also per se,--was not as yet a truly blissful life
in the presence of God [Psa. vi, 5; xlix, 15 sqq.; lxxxviii, 10-13;
cxv, 17; Isa. xxxviii, 18]. As Abraham rejoiced that he should see the
day of the Lord [John viii, 56], so also longed Abraham's seed for this
day, from which time forth, only, the life after death could be a truly
blessed one. The saints of the Old Covenant did not pass their lives as
having no hope, but their hope was primarily an historical one,--was
fixed upon the historical fulfillment of the promises, and aspired
toward a heavenly home only from, and on the basis of, this
fulfillment.--(2.) Though for the redeemed Christian the thought of a
future life is a very important element of his moral consciousness,
nevertheless for the as yet not truly regenerated man there lies in the
same no inconsiderable danger, namely, the danger of selfish
reward-seeking, of a narrow-hearted directing of his moral striving
exclusively toward his personal well-being instead of toward the
salvation of humanity. Though the saints of the Old Covenant
participated in many gracious gifts, so that they cannot be regarded as
merely natural men, still, they were not as yet in the highest sense
spiritually regenerated; and, in fact, in the necessary
redemption-preparing requirement of strict obedience to the
objectively-given law, they stood all the more exposed to this danger
of regarding their future salvation as a reward for good works, as is
actually evinced by the rise of Pharisaism. From this danger God
preserved the Hebrews, in that while He indeed promised them a gracious
reward for their fidelity, He yet presented as such reward, on the one
hand, only such goods as most evidently could not be, for the pious,
the highest good, and, on the other hand, the fulfillment of the divine
promises within the sphere of history, namely, redemption, so that they
were necessarily brought to the consciousness that the highest good was
not the reward of their own works, but the fruit of a future divine act
of grace.
Although the law had essentially also the purpose of awakening the
consciousness of the antagonism of the sinful nature of man against the
holy will of God, thus implying that the full consciousness of the
sinful perversion of human nature was a state that had as yet to be
attained to, nevertheless this consciousness exists from the very
beginning, and that too very vividly, as we shall hereafter see; and it
is especially noteworthy that notwithstanding the high reverence which
the Israelites had for their patriarchs and for the prophets of God,
still they were very far from regarding them as moral ideals. It is
true, there are mentioned pious and just men, such as Enoch and Noah;
and the faithfulness of Abraham shines forth typically even into the
New Covenant; but they are never presented as real holy types of
morality, (not even in Gen. xxvi, 4, 5; 2 Chron. vii, 17; Mal. ii, 15);
on the contrary, the historical records relate, even of the most
revered characters, manifold sins, and sins which the Israelites
unquestionably regarded as such; thus, for example, of Abraham [Gen.
xii, 11 sqq.; xx, 2 sqq.], and of Jacob [xxvii, 14 sqq.; xxxi, 20], and
of Reuben, of Simeon and Levi [xxxiv, 14 sqq.; xxxv, 22; xlix, 14
sqq.]; and of the other sons of Jacob [xxxvii]; and of Judah, the
ancestor of the kings, there is recorded scarcely any thing but evil;
he even begets Pharez--from whom David, and hence also the Messiah,
were to descend--in unconscious incest and conscious whoredom
[xxxviii]; Moses slays the Egyptian and buries him secretly, and this
was also certainly regarded as a crime [Exod. ii, 11 sqq.]; he resists
faint-heartedly the divine call, [Exod. iii and iv] and subsequently
wavers in his faith, and is, for that reason, shut out from the Land of
Promise [Num. xx, 7 sqq.; Deut. xxxii, 49 sqq.]; and that which is said
to him holds good in another sense of all the saints of the Old
Covenant, namely: "thou shalt see the land before thee, but thou shalt
not enter into it;" and however pre-eminent David and Solomon are in
courageous faith and in wisdom, still they were- not pure examples even
for the Israelites; the Israelites knew of only one Servant of God who
was perfect and pure and holy, namely, the longed-for Anointed of the
Lord. And accordingly the saints of the Old Covenant kept themselves
far from all self-glorification, and aspired to a higher goal. The
undevout self-righteousness and work-holiness of the later Pharisaism
is totally repugnant to the spirit of the Old Covenant; for the law
requires most certainly not merely the outward work, but above all and
essentially also a morally-pious disposition,--bears, in
contradistinction to the later Jewish outward legality, a very positive
character of inwardliness. The basis and essence of all morality are
the requirement, that man "should love God with all his heart, with all
his soul, and with all his might" [Deut. vi, 5; x, 12; xiii, 3]; he is
to take the divine law to his heart, and to observe it with his whole
heart and his whole soul [Deut. v, 29; vi, 6; xi, 13; 18 sqq.; xxvi,
16; xxx, 2; Josh. xxii, 5]; God desires not merely the external works,
he requires our heart [1 Chron. xxii, 19; Prov. xxiii, 26]; the saint
not only fulfills the law, but "his delight is in the law of the Lord"
[Psa. i, 2; cxii, 1; cxix, 24, 35, 70; Job xxii, 22, 26; Deut. xxviii,
47]; and all obedience is simply joyous thankfulness for God's gracious
guidance [Exod. xx, 2 sqq.; Deut. iv and v; vi, 20 sqq.; viii, 3 sqq.;
x, 19 sqq.; xi, 1; xv, 15; xvi, 12; 1 Chron. xxix, 9 and others]; and
therefore not merely the sinful act, but equally also the lust to evil,
is sinful and damnable [Exod. xx, 17; Prov. vi, 25].
Old Testament morality has essentially a preparatory character,--refers
forward to a higher and as yet to be acquired morality; hence it bears
in part a symbolical form,--expressing by external signs, that, the
full realization of which, was possible only after the time of the
accomplishment of redemption, and thereby constantly keeping before the
eyes of the people what the ultimate moral purpose of the divine
economy with Israel was,--although this purpose could not as yet be
fully realized. In order to keep constantly awake and to intensify the
moral consciousness of the antagonism of the divine will to the sinful
nature which had now become natural to actual man, the antagonism of
the "clean" and the "unclean" is rigorously insisted upon and carried
out, and that too not merely in the sphere of the purely spiritual and
moral, but also in that of nature, where the moral is only symbolically
prefigured. Man is required to learn, in free obedience, to distinguish
and choose between the godly and the ungodly, and that too not
according to his natural impulses and feelings, nor by the merely
reflective observation and examination of things, but solely by the
minutely-particularizing positive divine law. To man, as not yet
actually redeemed and sanctified, but as yet involved and entangled in
the bonds of sinfulness, the law presents itself, and properly so, as
of an objectively-revealed character, as foreign to his natural state,
and to which there is nothing correspondent in his inner nature unless
it be a loving willingness to unconditional obedience. Educative
disciplining to obedience is the essential end of many of the positive
laws, which must consequently appear to the truly emancipated and
redeemed as a. yoke, whereas, for him who is only as yet struggling
toward freedom, they are a wholesome discipline.
Old Testament morality presents a moral task not only to the individual
person, but it also keeps in view, from the very start, the necessity
of moral communion. It conceives of the moral significance of the.
family more highly than any of the heathen systems; in giving to
reverence for parents a religious ground, it guarantees at the same
time the moral rights of children as against sinful parents; and if it
is not as yet able to raise marriage to the height of the Christian
view, inasmuch as only the truly spiritually-regenerated are in a
condition to appreciate and fulfill its full significance [Matt. v, 31;
xix, 8], nevertheless it does give to it the truly religious and moral
basis. It changes the slavery of Israelites into a very mild
service-relation, and protects, by extremely humane regulations, that
of non-Israelites from arbitrary and severe oppressiveness. The
differences among mankind are no longer natural, but spiritually-moral;
even foreign slaves have part in the worship and in the blessings of
the people of God. The moral organization of society into the state is
presented in the Old Testament, from the very start, in its highest
moral significancy, as a unity of church and state--as a theocracy--in
which the entire moral community-life of the people rests on a
religious basis,--in which Jehovah alone is king, and the God-called
and enlightened prophets the organs of his will,--organs to whom the
people submit themselves in believingly joyous obedience. But here
also, as well as in the case of marriage, God gives simply the
unambiguous idea, and, because of the hardness of the hearts, concedes
another state-organization more correspondent to the sinful
circumstances of the people, namely, the purely human institution of an
earthly monarchy,--reserving the full realization of the higher idea,
for the future. But even this earthly kingdom is to be an image of the
divine kingdom, and the kings, the faithful instruments of the holy
will of God-kings "after God's own heart;" the Old Testament recognizes
neither despotic nor democratic caprice-domination as morally
admissible. Of all this we must speak again further on.
As Old Testament redemption-history presents essentially an educative
preparation for the historical accomplishing of the redemption-act,
hence it is clearly manifest that this preparation must be a
historically-progressive one, and that consequently Old Testament
ethics itself must have an historical development. This, as yet, very
unsatisfactorily-treated portion of Biblical theology cannot, however,
be fully presented in the brief space to which the plan of our
historical Introduction confines us; we therefore remark here only two
points, (1), that the essential character of the moral view (and the
question is here simply as to essential features) is contradictory to
the heathen view, and different from the Christian, and, throughout all
the writings of the Old Testament, self-consistent and the same: and,
(2), that the prophetic redemption-history is closely connected with
the legislative, seeing that Moses himself was the greatest among the
prophets. The prophets, in the narrower sense of the word, do not give
an essentially new moral revelation, but, on the contrary, uniformly
proceed on the basis of that of Moses,--referring, on the one hand,
exhortingly to its requirements, and rebuking the unfaithfulness of the
people to its spirit, but, on the other, directing attention with
constantly greater distinctness to the goal of this moral
development-process of the people of Israel, that is, to their world
historical destination,--and, above all, they seek to ward against the
danger of legal holiness and self-sufficiency, the danger of the
selfish contentment of the single moral subject with his own individual
development,--which lies in every strictly-developed system of
laws,--that is, against the danger of a merely external performing of
the works of the law, as was at a later period actually presented in
Pharisaism; they earnestly urged to the inner purity of the heart, and
bring to an increasingly clearer consciousness the morality that
transcends that of the mere individual, namely, the general moral task
of the totality, of the people of God. While the earlier ethics has
more the character of a doctrine of laws and duties, the ethics of the
prophets bears rather that of a doctrine of goods.--The Proverbs of
Solomon, in contrast to the Mosaic Laws which present themselves as
direct revelations from God, consist predominantly in rules of
practical life-wisdom and life-prudence, drawn from the rich
life-experience of a heart pious, though indeed often erring, and
strengthened and ripened in the true fear of God; they appeal therefore
less to a believing submission to an express divine command than rather
to the free spontaneous assent, natural to a pious God-consciousness;
they aim not at the disciplining of a, as yet, morally immature spirit
by a legal yoke, but at the purifying, ripening and moral strengthening
of the spirit as already consciously dwelling in God; they are not the
sternly demanding voice of a prophet, but the witness of a preacher; it
is not directly Jehovah, but it is the pious servant of God, who speaks
to the pious, In Moses the question is every-where as to obedience;
with Solomon the constant theme is wisdom, a quality which is scarcely
mentioned by Moses, and for the simple reason that the discipline of
the law needed to precede and prepare the way, before the free
subjectivity of wisdom could come to realization. This coming into the
fore-ground of the thought of wisdom evinces the progress of the moral
consciousness out of the child-like condition of subjection to an
objective law, to the riper manhood of a freer self-determination on
the basis of personal moral knowledge. Wisdom is here by no means mere
worldly prudence, but its beginning and essence is the "fear of the
Lord" [Prov. i, 7], and complete, hearty, God-confiding is its
life-spring [iii, 5; xvi], and soul-repose and God's approbation its
fruit [iii, 12, 18, 22 sqq.; viii, 17, 35; xv, 24; xxviii]; and hence
for individual man it is the highest good [iii, 13 sqq]. This wisdom is
very far removed from the "magnanimous" wisdom of the Greeks; it takes
cognizance above all things of the sinfulness of the natural heart, and
requires watchfulness over the same [iv, 23] and humility before God
and man [iii, 34; xi, 2; xvi, 18; xviii, 12; xxvii, 2; xxix, 23]. While
in the Solomonic Proverbs there is a manifest elevating of Mosaic
legality toward the personal freedom of the pious sage, still it is not
to be overlooked that there lies in the stand-point they assume, as in
contrast to the Mosaic, also the danger that the subjective presumption
of the individual person may rise to an unwarranted height, and work
detriment to the true heart-humility that springs from a consciousness
of one's own want of conformity to the law. And it is not unworthy of
note that the Christian consciousness of the Apostles found much less
occasion to appeal to the wisdom of man; they discourse far preferably
of self-denying, humbly loving faith.--The Ecclesiastes of Solomon,
after referring to the comfortless experience of a heart temporarily
immersed in world-enjoyment, totally overthrows all world-pleasure and
the vain hope of finding in the finite any real good; the mere negative
knowledge that "all is vanity" prepares the way for a seeking after the
true, the highest good, which, however, is but remotely suggested
[Eccles. xii, 7, 13] but not fully presented; the skepticism, at first
sight so seemingly wide-reaching and so entirely despairing of
satisfaction, has a back-ground of very profound educative wisdom.
In the fact that the moral is not derived from the natural conscience
of man, seeing that the conscience is no longer the pure expression of
the original God-consciousness, but that, on the contrary, the
historically-revealed will of God is the exclusive source of the moral
command, there lies an essential reason why Hebrew ethics did not
develop itself into a philosophy; the very thought of such a philosophy
conflicts with the fundamental presuppositions of the Old Testament
consciousness. The time had not yet come when the conscience, and human
knowledge in general, had so far become free as to derive truth also
from within themselves. As yet man was called simply believingly to
obey, but not freely and philosophically to create.
__________________________________________________________________
[98] In addition to general works on Old Testament theology, which
treat mostly of the ethical phase only incidentally, and to the works
mentioned in S: 5, may be cited, G. L. Bauer: Bibl. Moral des A. T.,
1803, 2 vols.,--extremely Rationalistic; (Imm. Berger: Prakt. Einl. ins
A. T., continued by Augusti, 1799-1808, 4 vols.)
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXVIII.
The Old Testament Apocryphal Books, [99] abandoned by the fire of the
prophetic spirit, and in part affected by foreign philosophical
influences, treat predominantly of morality. The moral law,--in the Old
Testament canon an essential element of the educative divine revelation
as a whole,--is here considered rather in itself and as unconnected
with the world-historical goal of the Theocracy, and is thereby
degraded into a merely individual, empirically-grounded moral
system.--In the Talmud the law appears as entirely unspiritualized,--as
fallen into complete lifeless externality, dissolved into its ultimate
atoms.
The moral thoughts of the Apocrypha give clear evidence of some degree
of obscuration of the consciousness of redemption-history, both in
respect to its presupposition, namely, the fall and its consequences,
and in regard to its true nature in the Ancient Covenant, and also in
regard to its historical goal--the expected redemption-act by Christ.
With the obscuration of this thought go naturally enough hand in hand a
manifest coming into the fore-ground of a certain holiness by works, in
the manner of the heathen moralists [comp. Sirach iii, 16, 17 (14, 15),
33 (30); xxix, 15-17 (12, 13); xvii, 18 (22) sqq.], a one-sided
laudation of wisdom and righteousness in obliviousness of the question
whether indeed there are any such wise and righteous persons to be
found, and also in many respects a proud self-satisfaction with one's
own wisdom and virtue, together with a censorious and contemptuous
looking-down upon the unwise and unrighteous many,--a certain
coldly-rational self-complacent tone, especially in Sirach,--a
suspicious complaining and an almost bigoted abstaining from true
love-communion with others [comp. Sirach xi, 30 (29) sqq.; xii; xiii;
xxv, 10 (7); xxx, 6; xxxiii, 25; sqq.],--a zealous cautioning against
the wickedness and falseness of others instead of a warning against the
wickedness and deceptiveness of one's own heart; and there is
frequently a manifest lack of the proper humility of the truly
self-understanding conscience; and the obtaining of personal happiness
is often presented too one-sidedly as a direct motive to virtue, so
that the ethical view is sometimes tinged with a shallow utilitarianism
[comp. Sirach xiv, 14 sqq.].--The book of Wisdom, showing traces of
Alexandrino-Piatonic influences, and accordingly containing the four
Greek virtues [viii, 7]. does not keep far clear of work-holy boasting
[ e. g. vii and viii]; and though it admits the sinful corruption and
weakness of all men [ix; xii, 10 sqq.; xiii, 1 sqq.; ii, 24], it yet
brings them into a false connection with theories from other sources
[viii, 19, 20; ix, 15; e. g., pre-existence of the soul, and dualistic
relation of the body as an essential trammeling of the soul]. The book
of Sirach gives expression both to a deep piety and to a rich practical
life-experience, and though in the eyes of Rationalism it is the most
valuable book of the Old Testament, it is still very far superior to
modern Rationalistic shallowness [comp. xxv, 32 (24); xl, 15, 16; xli,
8 (5), sqq.; viii, 6 (5)]; it manifests, however, on the other hand,
also a want of depth in its view of sinfulness and of the need of
redemption [comp. xv, 15-17; xxxii, 27 (Septuagint, xxxv, 23); xxxvii,
17 (13); li, 18 (13) sqq.], and often places the outward ungenerous
prudence-rules of a distrustful understanding in the stead of higher
moral ideas [e. g. viii, 1 sqq.; xlii, 6, 7], and, as differing from
the book of Wisdom, alludes to no supernatural goal of morality in a
transmundane life; it may indeed teach the spiritually regenerated much
moral life-wisdom and prudent rational foresight, but it cannot bring
the natural man to self-acquaintance and humility. From the stand-point
of Christian ethics, this book is very far remote; the essence of love
is unknown to it. The book of Judith presents in narrative form a
highly questionable morality [ix, 2 sqq.; comp. Gen. xxxiv; xlix, 5-7].
As in Sirach the vigorously-growing tree of Old Testament ethics begins
to show signs of failing vitality, so in the Talmud (A. D. 200-600) we
find the dead and decayed or petrified trunk. [100] Abandoned by the
spirit of faith and hope, the Jews, in their faithlessness to their
Redeemer, lost also the spirit of love; and human ingenuity changed the
law which was readily enough borne by hoping faith, into an unspiritual
yoke utterly subversive of moral fieedom. The strictly objective
character of the Old Testament law, so necessary for disciplinary
purposes, had -its vital complement in an expectant faith. This latter
ele1m.ent becomes in the Talmud deceptive and wavering, and gives place
almost entirely to the doctrine of the law; and the lifeless, idealess
law, multiplied thousandfoldly by the ingenuity of human exegesis and
inference, takes even the most insignificant and external actions into
a dictatorially-regulative tutelage. Man acts no longer as prompted by
his inner consciousness, for his inner life-source is dried up, but
according to the outward law as multiplying its branches through all
the channels of human life.--The Talmud contains, besides its more
spiritual elements, which are mostly taken from the Old Testament, a
system of casuistry unparalleled for its trivial and childish entering
into minutiae, such as was possible in fact only on just such a soil,
namely, matured Pharisaism. For the Jew, the authority of the Scribes
takes the place of the moral conscience; to him who honestly holds fast
to the law, the multiplicity of precepts becomes a yoke subversive of
true morality, while to those who are less sincere the manifold
contradictions in the same give pretext for a disingenuous relaxation
of duty.
Observation. Islamism,--which finds its place in the history of the
religious and moral spirit not as a vital organic member, but as
violently interrupting the course of this history, and which is to be
regarded as an attempt of heathenism to maintain itself erect, under an
outward monotheistic form, against Christianity, and to arm the entire
unbroken essence of the natural man against the spirit of an inner
new-birth,--has indeed given rise to a peculiar ethical system, though
one which has so little of depth peculiar to itself, that we need here
only allude to it in passing. [101] The ethics of Islam bears the
character of an outwardly and crudely conceived doctrine of
righteousness; conscientiousness in the sphere of the social relations,
faithfulness to conviction and to one's word, and the bringing of all
action into relation to God, are its bright points; but there is a lack
of heart-depth, of a basing of the moral in love. The highest good is
the very outwardly and very sensuously conceived happiness of the
individual. The potency of sin is not recognized; evil is only an
individual, not an historical power; hence there is no need of
redemption, but only of personal works on the basis of prophetic
instruction; Mohammed is only a teacher, not an atoner. God and man
remain strictly external to, and separate from, each other; God--no
less individually conceived of than man--comes into no real communion
with man; and man, as moral, acts not as influenced by such a
communion, but only as an isolated individual. The ideal basis of the
moral is faith in God and in his Prophet; the moral life, conceived as
mainly consisting in external works, is not a fruit of received
salvation, but a means for the attainment of the same; pious works, and
particularly prayer, fasting and almsgiving, and pilgrimaging to Mecca,
work salvation directly of themselves. Man has nothing to receive from
God but the Word, and nothing to do for God but good works; of inner
sanctification there is no thought; the essential point is simply to
let the per se good nature of man manifest itself in works; there is no
inner struggle in order to attain to the true life, no
penitence-struggle against inner sinfulness; and instead of true
humility we find only proud work-righteousness. To the natural
propensions of man there is consequently but little refused,--nothing
but the enjoyment of wine, of swine-flesh, of blood, of strangled
animals, and of games of chance, and this, too, for insufficient
(assigned) reasons. The merely individual character of the morality
manifests itself especially in the low conception that is formed of
marriage, in which polygamy is expressly conceded, woman degraded to a
very low position, and the dissolution of the marriage bond placed in
the unlimited discretion of the man; there hence results a very
superficial view of the family in general; the moral community-life is
conceived of throughout in a very crude manner. Unquestionably this
form of ethics is not an advancing on the part of humanity, but a
guilty retrograding from that which had already been attained.
__________________________________________________________________
[99] Comp. Staeudlin: Gesch. der Sittenl. Jesu, i, 358; Cramer: Moral
der Apokr., 1814; (also in Keil and Tzschirner's Analekten, 1814, ii,
1, 2,); Raebiger: Ethica libe apocr., 1838; Keerl: Die Apokr. d. A. T.,
1852, somewhat unfair; comp. Hengstenberg: Fuer Beibehaltung der Apokr.
[100] Mishna translated by Rabe, 1760, 6 vols.--Talmud Babli, the
Babylonian Talmud, by Pinner, 1842.--Schulchan Aruch by Loewe, 1836, 4
vols.--Fassel: Die mosaisch-rabbin. Tugend-u. Pflichtenl., 2 ed., 1842.
[101] Imm. Berger: Ueber die Moral des Koran in Staeudlin's Beitraege
zur Phil., v, 250, (1799), superficial.--Weil: Mohammed,
1843.--Sprenger: Leben u. Lehre des Moh., 1862.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
C.--CHRISTIAN ETHICS.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXIX.
In Christianity alone morality and ethics are enabled to reach their
perfection,--the former being perfected in the person of Christ
himself, the latter being in process of self-perfection in the
progressive intellectual activity of the church.--The subjective and
the objective grounds of morality are given, in Christianity, in full
sufficiency. On the one hand, the moral subject has attained to a fill
consciousness of sin, of its general sway, of its historical
significancy, and of its guilt; on the other, he has, by redemption,
become free from his bondage under sin. and risen again to moral
freedom,--has again attained to the possibility of accomplishing his
moral task. On the one hand, the objective ground of the moral--God--is
now for the first, perfectly, personally and historically revealed to
man, and God's will not merely manifested in unclouded clearness in his
Word and through the historical appearance of the Redeemer himself, but
also, by the holy, divine Spirit as imparted to the redeemed, written
into their hearts; on the other, this God stands no longer in violent
antithesis to the sin-estranged creature, but is in Christ reconciled
with him, and, as a graciously loving Father, is present to him and in
constant sanctifying and strengthening life-communion with him.
The goal of morality has become an other,--has risen from the state of
hope to a constantly-growing reality. God-sonship is not placed simply
at the remote termination of the moral career, but is from the very
beginning already present; the Christian strives not merely in moral
aspiration toward it, but lives and acts in it and as inspired by it;
he cannot possibly live or act morally if he is not already God's
child; he has his goal already from the very beginning as a blessed
reality, and his further goal is in fact simply fidelity in this
God-sonship,--a sinking deeper into it, a strengthening and purifying
of it by a constantly greater triumphing over the sinfiul nature which
yet clings to the Christian, namely, the "flesh" which lusts against
the spirit; and for collective humanity the moral goal is and has been
realizing itself from the beginning in ever increasing fullness,
namely, in the fact that all nation-separating barriers progressively
fall away, and that the Word of life increasingly assumes form in the
God-fearing of all nationalities,--constituting the kingdom of God in
its gradual rising to full historical reality in a universal Christian
church.
The essence of morality has risen from the stage of the obedience of a
faithful servant to that of the loving, confiding freedom of the
children of God. Man has the command no longer as a merely outward,
purely objective one, uncongenial to his subjective nature, but as an
inward one dwelling within him, and as become his personal possession,
and hence as no longer a yoke, a burden, but as an inner power at one
with his personality itself. Man lives and acts no longer as a mere
individual subject, but he lives and acts in full life-communion with
the Redeemer, and through him with God,--by virtue, on the one hand, of
the love of faith, and, on the other, of the gift of the Spirit: I
live, and yet not I, but Christ lives in me. Tile moral idea is not a
mere revealed Word, it is the Son of God as become man, the personal
Redeeter himself, not merely in his truth-unvailing doctrine, not
merely in his truth-revealing Spirit, but pre-eminently in his person
itself, both as the historical, pure example of all holiness, as also
as the One who is with us always even to the end of the world.--Love to
that God who is manifested in redemption as himself the highest love,
is the motive of the moral life--its essence and its power; it is a
life of holy communion in every respect,--a life in and with God, a
life with the children of God and in the communion of the
redeemed.--The morality of hope has passed over into a morality of the
joyous victory-consciousness,--is rather an actual manifestation of the
already-attained, grace-awarded highest good, than a mere longing,
aspiring after it. The ideal goal of morality is not in the least of a
doubtful character, but is absolutely assured. While the fundamental
feeling of the heathen virtue-sage is that of a proud
self-consciousness of personal merit, the fundamental feeling of the
Christian is the feeling of grace-accepting, thankful, loving humility;
while the fundamental virtue of the Greeks is self-acquired wisdom,
that of Christian morality is child-like faith in God's loving
revelation both in Word and in historical act.
There is no need here of detailed developments or proofs; we desire
simply to present the ground-character of Christian ethics as in
contrast to heathen ethics. This much is clear from what we have
already said, that morality must assume here an entirely other form
than in heathendom, and even in many respects a different one from that
in the Old Testament. No heathen ethical system looks to the formation
of aI kingdom of God embracing all mankind; the freedom of the will is
either denied or restricted to a very few favored ones, and with these
it is regarded as unaffected by the historical power of sin; heathenism
knows nothing of personal love to God as a moral motive, and of the
personal love of God to all men as its antecedent condition.
Christianity takes it just as earnestly with the reality, the power and
the guilt of sin, as with the real, historical, overcoming of the same
through Christ. Man, as not from nature free, but as become free by
historical redemption-act and by the personal appropriation of the
same, is the true subject, capable of all true morality; and hence the
realization of this morality depends no longer on a mere
nature-conditionment, but solely on man's free self-determination for
or against his redemption. That which is presumptuously presupposed by
the Greek philosophers as already possessed by the elect few who are
capable of true morality, namely, true will-freedom and a personal
moral consciousness springing from the inner essence of the soul, all
this has attained to its full truth only. in Christianity, namely, in
that the false security of a merely natural freedom and power is
overcome and remedied. Both freedom and power are procured for all who
wish them, and that not by self-deception, but by a real moral
redemption-act of the alone holy One.
That the highest good is not a something to be attained to exclusively
by moral action, but, on the contrary, in its essence a power
graciously conferred on the willing heart, a power which has true
morality simply as its fruit and subjective perfection, and which
manifests this morality essentially as faithfulness, as a preserving
and virtualizing of the received grace,--this is a thought utterly
foreign to all heathendom, and which is placed, even in the Old
Testament, only in the promised future; and upon this thought, as upon
the consciousness of personal guilt and divine grace, rests the so
distinctively Christian virtue of humility, as that of a pardoned
sinner. There is scarcely anywhere to be found so violent an ethical
antithesis as that between the high-esteemed virtue of magnanimity in
Aristotle (which corresponds to the pride of the Pharisee in the
parable of Christ,) and the Christian humility of that Publican who
ventures no other prayer than this: "God be merciful to me a sinner."
Such magnanimity appears to the Christian as mere self-blinding pride,
while this humility appears to the Greek as servile-mindedness.
Heathen ethics is always simply of a purely individual character, or,
if it relates to a moral community-life, then only of a merely civil
character, as consisting in obedience to laws purely human, and valid
only for a particular people; or where, as in China, the state is
regarded as of divine origin and essence, there individual morality
becomes essentially a mere mechanical self-conforming to an eternally
on-revolving unspiritual world-order; Christian morality is, on the
contrary, never of a merely individual character, but absolutely and
always an expression of moral communion--on the one hand, with the
personal Saviour and God, and, on the other, with the Christian
society; its essential nature is therefore love in the fullest sense.
of the word, and it is never of a merely civil character but belongs to
a purely moral community-life,--a life that rests in no respect on
nature-limits or on unfreedom,--namely, that of the Church as the
historical kingdom of God.-- In contradistinction to worldward-turned
heathenism, Christians make the foundation and essence of all moral
life to consist in the constant direction of the heart to God; and
especially in prayer--(which, as exalted by the communion of devotion,
becomes the principal phase of the entire religious life, and
conditions and preserves a direct personal life-communion with
God)--the entire moral life shapes itself into an expression of the
religious consciousness as certain of its reconciliation with God. The
Christian stands not alone in his moral life, nor is he merely a member
of a moral society, but he stands in constant vital personal
life-communion with God, and derives therefrom constantly new moral
power. And precisely because Christian morality is not of a merely
individual character, but is rooted in and grows out of the holiest of
communions, is it truly free; the law stands no longer simply over
against man, so that his relation to it becomes one of mere service,
but, as in contrast to the self-sufficiency of the heathen mind (which
finds in the natural man the pure fountain of the moral consciousness),
it has become a perfectly inward personal law, one that constantly
generates itself anew out of the sanctified heart of the spiritually
regenerated.
But prayer, wherein man enters into communion with God, is, as also the
example of the ancient church shows, essentially intercession,--implies
moral communion. The development of morality into a collective life of
the moral society,--into a collective morality,--is an essentially new
phenomenon. Heathendom knew indeed the indefinite and merely
impersonal, abstract power of national custom, as well as the very
definite but unfree-working power of the civil law and of political
rulers, but it knew nothing of a free moral power of the truly moral
community. The Christian community itself is the clearly duty-conscious
upholder, promoter and conservator of the morality of the individuals;
it has the duty of the moral overseeing, furthering and guiding of all
its members, and hence also of moral discipline, and, as involved in
this, also the power of inflicting moral discipline upon the
unfaithful,--consisting essentially in the withdrawing of communion
with them, in the excluding of them from the moral whole as being
non-tolerant of any immoral element. The community-life is of so purely
moral, so intensely unitary, a character, that the unfaithfulness of a
single member thrills through the moral whole, and, because of the
intimate love of the whole for all the individuals, is painfully felt
and reproved and rejected by the society. The totality stands surety
for the morality of the individual, and the individual for that of
totality; the moral life of the spiritual organism has attained to its
truth. The thought of church-discipline,--which raises morality-above
the sphere of mere individuality, without, however, giving to the
community-life the power of outward coercion, such as that of the
state, but on the contrary preserves and gives effect to this life as a
purely spiritual power,--is an essentially Christian thought, and is
only there practical where the moral idea and its realization in the
community-life are taken really in earnest.
In the emancipation of the human spirit by redemption, in the taking up
of the moral idea into the inner heart of the consciousness, there lie,
now, the possibility of, and the incentive to, a scientific development
of the moral consciousness. Heathendom developed an ethical science
only on the basis of a presumed freedom and autonomy of the spirit of
the natural man; the Old Testament religion developed none at all,
because in it the divine law was as yet an absolutely objective and
merely passively-given one, to which man could stand only in an obeying
relation. But Christianity regains for the human spirit its true
freedom,--makes the merely objective law into an also perfectly
subjective one, into one that lives in the heart of the regenerated as
his real property, one that enlightens the reason and becomes thereby
truly rational; and hence there is here given the possibility of
shaping this pure moral subject-matter as embraced in the divinely
enlightened conscience, into free scientific self-development. But
Christian ethics, naturally enough, developed itself as a science only
after its presuppositions, namely, the dogmatical questions in regard
to God, to Christ and to man had attained to some degree of ripeness in
the dogmatic consciousness of the church, and hence it appears for a
long while predominantly only in closest involution with dogmatics, and
in popular ecclesiastical instruction in the form of rules and
exhortations, and in part also in ecclesiastically-defined
life-regulations enforced by ecclesiastical discipline. The notion that
the ancient church could and should have passed over the great dogmatic
questions and devoted itself primarily and predominantly, or in fact
exclusively, to the development of a system of morals as the essence
proper of Christianity, is very erroneous. If we once perceive and
admit that the Christian world-theory in general, in respect to God, to
the creature, and especially to the nature of man, is of a character
diametrically opposed to the heathen view, and if we admit that
morality cannot be of an unconscious and merely instinctive character,
but must rest on a rational consciousness, then it is perfectly clear
that the consciousness must first be scientifically informed in regard
to the reality of existence, before that the consciousness of that
which, in virtue of the character of this reality, becomes moral duty,
can be further developed The religious consciousness of the moral was
indeed given in high perfection in the first form of Christianity, but
the scientific development of the moral could realize itself only very
gradually and subsequently to the development of dogmatics.
The three natural chief epochs of church history constitute also those
of the history of Christian ethics.
__________________________________________________________________
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I. THE ANCIENT CHURCH UP TO THE SEVENTH CENTURY.
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SECTION XXX.
Morality, as never separated from piety, and as uniformly based on
loving faith in the Redeemer, and as upheld, fostered and watched over
by the church-communion, appears in its inner phase as essentially love
to God, and to Christ and to his disciples as brethren, and in its
outer phase as a strict rejection of heathen customs, which latter
feature, both in consequence of the persecutions suffered and because
of the deep corruption of the extra-Christian world, assumes the form
not unfrequently of a painfully-anxious self-seclusion from the same;
and when, with the victory of Christianity over heathenism, from the
time of Constantine on, worldliness pressed into the church itself,
then, as a natural counterpoise against this worldliness,
world-renunciation was made to apply, among the more pious-minded
Christians, even to the sensuously-worldly phase of the Christian life,
and was intensified, in the hermit-life, even to morbidness; and in
consequence of the distinction which gradually sprang up in the church
itself out of this antithesis in the Christian life, namely, between
the moral commands, on the one hand, and the evangelical counsels on
the other (which latter were thought to condition a superior degree of
holiness), the moral consciousness was essentially beclouded.
The moral views of the early Church are at once distinguishable from
those of later Judaism by their profound grasping into the pious heart
as the living fountain of a true and free morality, and from those of
heathenism by the purity and rigor of the fundamental principles
involved; and the unavoidable militant resistance against the
demoralized heathen world naturally enough heightened this rigor to a
degree which, but for this, seems no longer required. The essential
difference of the Christian moral law from that of the Old Testament is
fully recognized as early as from the time of Barnabas (Ep. c. 19). The
rigorous element shows itself especially in respect to all sensuous
pleasure and all worldly diversion, to marriage, to temporal
possessions, and to political power, and to whatever is in any manner
implicated with heathenism. In contrast to heathen laxity, the ancient
Christians were all the more anxiously watchful against all dominion of
sensuous desire, esteeming fasting very highly, though not as a
commanded duty, and eschewing the demoralizing and religion-periling
influence of the heathen stage and of other amusements; and the
severity of their sufferings under the hatred of the world naturally
enough made all worldly pleasure appear as in diametrical antagonism to
Christian-mindedness. In a well-grounded persuasion of the dangers
involved, the Christians declined to accept official positions in the
heathen State. Chasteness even in thought was rigorously insisted upon;
marriage was held more sacred than had ever been done before, and the
sensuous element of the same was guarded within strict limits; and in
view of the troubles of the times, and of the expectation of a near
second-coming of Christ (which pretty generally prevailed in the first
two centuries), very many inclined to a preference of celibacy,
without, however, regarding it as a specially-meritorious course of
conduct; second marriages, however, were generally viewed as an
infidelity to the first consort. Riches were mostly looked on as of
questionable desirableness; the taking of interest was regarded (in.
harmony with the Old Testament view) as not permissible; beneficence
and generosity to the brethren on a wide-reaching scale, was held as
one of the most essential virtues; fidelity to truth, especially in
confessing the faith, even in the face of threatening death, was a
sacred duty, and its faithful fulfillment was the Christian's brightest
testimony before his heathen persecutors. The oath was generally
regarded as not allowable. Tender love toward each other, and a noble
love of enemies, were the Christian's honor. The moral and
warmly-fraternal community-life of the believers was a matter of
astonishment even to the passionate enemies of Christianity. Slavery
was at once essentially done away with by being transformed into a
fraternally-affectionate service-relation; and when the State and laws
became Christian, it was also greatly mitigated legally.
Notwithstanding the rigor of the moral view of the Christians, it
nevertheless differs essentially from that of the Stoics, because of
its fundamental character of joyous faith and love; it is in no respect
a harsh, stiff or dismal, but, on the contrary, a thoroughly vigorous,
youthful and joyous self-sacrificing life, in the full enjoyment of
inner peace and of a conscious blessedness. These features were
measurably lost only when the Christian Church itself ceased to be the
pure moral antithesis of the un-Christian world, and when, having
become a State-Church, it admitted into itself even worldly, and in so
far, also, heathen elements. And it was now an essentially correct
consciousness which inspired the more pious of the believers with a
disinclination to the life and pursuits of the great mass of
Christians, and drove them into separating themselves from them. The
error, however, was this, that instead of separating the unpious from
the Church itself, they chose the separation, within the Church, of the
pious from communion with the mass of the Church, and thereby rendered
the exclusion of the immoral from the Church more impracticable than
ever,--in other words, that, instead of morally purifying the natural
elements that inhered both in themselves and in the society, they
despisingly withdrew the spiritual from all contact with the natural.
The first theoretical as well as practical separation of the ascetes
(as imitated from the distinction, prevalent in the heathen world,
between philosophers and the unphilosophical multitude, and as
extending even to their costume), who thought by extreme
world-renunciation to attain to an especially high moral perfection,
and, as consequent thereon, also the distinguishing of a general
Christian morality from a higher (and in some sense voluntary) ascetic
morality, manifests itself in the third century in the currents of
Alexandrian thought which had been so largely influenced by heathen
philosophy,--as yet but feebly in Clemens Alexandrinus, [102] but
already very damagingly in Origen. [103] The victory of Christianity
over the heathen state in the fourth century, and the in-rushing both
of the great and also of the populace into the Church, occasioned, on
the one hand, a progressively growing relaxation of ecclesiastical
discipline and a darkening of the moral consciousness in the great
masses, and, on the other, in natural antithesis thereto, an
increasingly radical exalting of the monastic life, in which the
Christian conscience of the multitude found, as it were, an atoning
complementing of their own imperfect secularized life. The ordinary
requirements made upon the life of the ordinary Christian became less
deep-reaching; but all the more rigorous were those made upon the
ascetic life--wherein Christian morality was now thought to exist in
its highest perfection. The distinguishing of mere ordinary moral duty,
as the inferior, from moral perfection, became increasingly more
familiar to the general Christian consciousness. The two true elements
of Christian morality, namely, the turning away from the sinful world,
and the aggressive living and working in and for the same, fell apart
into two different channels, which respectively served, for the sum
total of moral merit, as complements to each other; the superabundant
merit of the sanctity of the ascetes fell to the good of the
little-meriting world-Christians. In the sphere of morality a division
of labor, so to speak, took place, and, in consequence thereof, there
was subsequently developed in the sphere of moral merits a system of
labor and traffic so artfully organized that it required all the boldly
initiatory vigor of the Reformation to bring again to the light of day
the plain fundamental principles of evangelical morality. To the
present period of the history of Christian ethics belong, however, only
the feebler beginnings of this corruption.
The development of monasticism introduced a dualism into Christian
morality, in that it proposed for the ascetes a morality essentially
different from that of the rest of the Christian world, the latter
being based upon the divine command, and the former upon pretended
divine counsels; with this error were more or less affected Lactantius,
Ambrose, Chrysostom, Jerome, and Augustine. In consequence of this,
general Christian morality was degraded to a mere minimum; the truly
good was made to be different from the divine command, and this good
was considered no longer as the imperative will of God, but only, as it
were, a divine wish, the fulfilling of which procures for man a special
extraordinary merit, but the non-fulfilling of which awakens no divine
displeasure. The more general prevalence of this view involved the
overthrow of purely evangelical ethics, and the beginning of the
perversion of the moral life of the Church in practical respects. By
far the greatest portion even of the dogmatic and ecclesiastical errors
of the Romish and Greek Churches has sprung from this very notion of a
special sanctity in monasticism,
__________________________________________________________________
[102] Strom., p. 775, 825 (Potter).
[103] Comm. in Ep. ad Rom., 507 (De la Rue).
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SECTION XXXI.
Ethics itself appears not as yet in scientific form and apart from the
presentation of the subject-matter of dogmatics; it appears more in the
popular edificatory than in the scientific writings, and approaches
more nearly a scientific form in the works written in self-defense
against the heathen. The first connected and somewhat comprehensive
presentation of ethics--by Ambrose--in the manner of Cicero, is
scientifically of little value; while the brilliant, penetrative, and
ingenious moral thoughts of Augustine, (which, along with Aristotle,
formed the foundation of Mediaeval ethics), deviate sometimes in daring
originality from the earlier ecclesiastical view, and also bring some
confusion into purely evangelical ethics by an overvaluing of monkish
asceticism. After the time of Augustine, ethics is for the most part
limited to the mere collecting of the views of earlier writers, and to
popular instruction. The mystical thoughts of the pseudo-Dionysius the
Areopagite became influential only in the Middle Ages. [104]
The strict moral life of the early Christians furnished indeed in its
inner experiences weighty matter for ethics; ethics proper, however,
confined itself at first to the framing of life-rules, which, resting
on the fundamental thought of faith and love, were enforced and
supported by Scripture texts and by apostolical tradition, by the
example of Christ and of the saints of sacred history, and by spiritual
experience, and, at a later period, also by the example and authority
of the martyrs, and by the definitions [canones] of the synods, but
they were not as yet digested into a scientific whole. From the moral
philosophy of the heathen the Church Fathers kept themselves
substantially clear, though they adopted from the Platonic and Stoic,
and from the later popular philosophy of the Eclectics, many forms and
thoughts. The earlier Fathers, also Irenaeus, involved themselves in
perplexities by the fact that, basing themselves primarily on the Old
Testament writings, they often presented the moral life of the
Patriarchs too fully as a pattern for Christians, although they
recognized, throughout, the merely preparatory purpose of the Old
Testament law.
In their genuine writings the apostolical Fathers confine themselves to
simple evangelically-earnest exhortations. [105] --At a very early date
there was manifested an antithesis of such on the one hand, as with
full fidelity to the Christian faith yet used in the service of
Christianity the best results of heathen culture, and, of such on the
other, as regarded it as the primary duty of the Church to emphasize
and insist on the total contrariety of Christianity to heathenism, and,
above all things, also in the morally-practical life, to break off all
yet-existing relations with the heathen world, and to present the holy
society as, in itself, a totally new world. Both tendencies--the former
prevailing more among Greek, the latter more among Latin
Christians--were equally legitimate, but both in equal danger of
one-sidedness; the former with the aid of Greek philosophy laid rather
the foundation for a scientific construction of the moral
consciousness, the latter developed rather a rigorous, and even harsh,
legality of the moral life; Origen and Tertullian respectively, are
prominent representatives of this antithesis.
The philosophically educated Justin the Martyr gives special emphasis,
in defense of Christianity, to its high moral (and by him very
earnestly conceived) views and practical workings, and to its
difference from the merely preparatory Old Testament law; he insists
very strongly on the freedom of the will as a condition of the moral;
but he manifests already a preference for celibacy as a higher
perfection, doubtless not without being somewhat influenced thereto by
the Platonic notion of the nature of matter.--Clemens Alexandrinus
enters more direct upon the nature of the moral. In his Exhortation to
the Heathen (Logos protreptikos, cohortatio), he exposes the
defectiveness of heathen ethics, and in single characterizing strokes
contrasts with it Christian ethics, as the higher; in his Paedagogos,
designed for beginners in Christianity, he gives a more specific but at
the same time more popular presentation of the subject; but in his
Stromata: he raises the Christian faith-consciousness, and
morality-consciousness to a much higher scientific form, evidencing
truly philosophic ability. The divine Logos,--who manifests himself in
fact in all true philosophy of the heathen, but in a still higher
degree in the Old Testament, and most fully and purely in the New
Testament,--is also the pure fountain of the moral consciousness; with
the Hebrews the divine law was essentially objective; but in
Christianity it is, by virtue of the activity of the divine Logos,
written into the hearts of all believers. The highest law is love to
God, and, as based thereon, love to our neighbor; the highest goal is
likeness to, and life-communion with, God; the condition of the moral
is will-freedom, which, although hampered, yet not destroyed, by the
fall, is now restored in Christianity; the Logos, that is, Christ, is
the pattern of salvation and the leader thereto. In his very detailed
inquiries in the sphere of the moral life, Clemens shows himself both
earnest and judicious; he esteems marriage very highly, and manifests
no preference for celibacy. A visible fondness for the rational
contemplation of the divine, as in contrast to the lower sphere of mere
faith (corresponding to the prevalent Greek distinguishing between
philosophers and ordinary men), interferes somewhat, however, with his
interest in active outward life.--On the use of earthly goods, he
treats in detail in his work: Quis dives salvetur.
Origen has rich thoughts on the moral, scattered through his many
writings, but especially in his Homilies and Commentaries and in his
work against Celsus. His Scripture-exegesis is always pregnant with
thought, though often venturesomely interpreting and allegorizing,
especially in the Old Testament. Freedom of will he insists on fully as
strongly as does Clemens, with whom in other respects he essentially
harmonizes. His moral views are rigid, but not harsh; the moral
disposition alone constitutes, in his view, the worth of the deed; but
his over-estimation of the monkish life and of martyrdom, and his
doctrine that man can do more of the good and meritorious than is
commanded of him, becloud somewhat the otherwise evangelical character
of his ethics. His well-known dogmatical tendency to un-churchly
opinion shows itself less prominently in the sphere of ethics, and even
his notion of the pre-existence of souls does not essentially interfere
with his moral ideas.
In striking contrast to the freer idealistic tendency of the
Alexandrians, and in harshest Occidental realism, stands the African
theologian Tertullian. Greatly delighting in spiritual eccentricities,
and inclined to daring exaggerations of per se true thoughts, this
writer presents Christian ethics in his numerous moral writings on
special topics (especially in his De idololatria, De pudicitia, Ad
uxorem, De monogamia, De exhortatione castitatis, De spectaculis, De
oratione, etc.), in a very rigorously legal spirit, especially
insisting upon its self-denying, world-renouncing, ascetic
phase,--already far leaning toward the monkish view, and exerting a
wide-spread influence on the Occident. And this juristic-minded man,
with his strong inclination to rigorous formulae, is true to himself
also in the sphere of morality. His passing over to Montanist views
does not essentially modify his previous moral views, as they were in
fact from the first not inconsistent therewith.--While, on the one
hand, he emphasizes more strongly than the Greek Fathers the natural
corruption of all men as resulting from the fall, without, however,
doing away with moral freedom, on the other hand, he raises (though not
without having the precedent of the church in his favor) the
requirement of holiness in Christians so high that he regards as
admissible, at farthest, only a single repentance after baptism, and,
for reiterated severe sins, such as defection from the faith, adultery,
whoredom, murder, knows of no forgiveness whatever; [106] the
distinction--here appearing more strongly than ever before--between
venial and mortal sins, received subsequently a somewhat different
significancy. The greatest sin is defection from the true
faith--idolatry; [107] hence the Christian must avoid in word and deed
every thing which is connected with heathenism,--e. g., he may not
crown himself, may not visit theatrical spectacles, etc. Tertullian
insists also, and with almost painful anxiety, on attention to all
outward actions and manners,--e. g., he gives long and detailed
disquisitions on the clothing and decoration of women, whom he would
like to see attired in a natural and modest simplicity,--not without
many theoretical whims (De habitu, muliebri, De cultu foeminarum, De
velandis virginibus). Marriage he regards indeed as a divine
institution, although, in view of the expectation of a speedy second
coming of Christ, he prefers celibacy as the more perfect and pure
state; and second marriages he unconditionally forbids as a heavy
sin,--in the face of the utterances of Paul. Fasting he requires not
merely as a penance, but as a protective means of virtue, conducive to
a higher perfection, namely, in that it turns the soul away from the
earthly and toward the heavenly; and he attempts to reduce it to
definite rigorous rules (De jejunio). To accept political offices and
to wear the insigna thereof, conflicts per se with Christian humility,
seeing that because of their connection with heathen religion they are
inconsistent with Christian sincerity, as also, because of the function
of officers to execute and to torture, inconsistent with Christian
gentleness; [108] military service, the Christian must unconditionally
refuse. [109] The notion of a Christian state is utterly foreign to
Tertullian; he knows only of the heathen state. The enduring of
martyrdom may, as the highest victory of Christian virtue, by no means
be evaded by flight or otherwise; all shrinking is here unworthy
cowardice (De fuga in persecutione; Scorpiacum). Unshaken patience in
all manner of suffering in general, he describes and discusses with
great ability (De patientia).
Cyprian, a great admirer of Tertullian, but more churchly than he, and
in his moral judgments more mild, developed, one-sidedly, still
further, the ascetic phase of Christian morality; abstinence from
enjoyment, steadfastness in suffering, martyrdom, and beneficence to
the poor, appear, to him, as the highest virtues; strict churchliness,
obedient submission to the visible church and its episcopal guides, as
the foundation of all Christian morality; heretical opinions and
schismatic separation, as the ground of all moral corruption. While in
Tertullian morality appears more as an individual manifestation of the
religious personality, in Cyprian it is rather an expression of the
community-life of the church. As to marriage and celibacy, he judges as
Tertullian. (De unitate ecclesiae; Exhort. ad martyrium; De bono
patientiae; De opere et eleemosynis; De zelo et livore; De oratione
dominica; and many letters).
The severe dogmatic conflicts of the fourth century which so deeply
rent the Oriental church, turned the current of thought somewhat away
from ethics, so that we here find scarcely any thing but merely popular
and not scientific presentations of the ethical, and that too for the
most part simply in homilies and practical elucidations of
Scripture.--Basil the Great--as yet largely devoted to ethical
questions--gives (besides his homilies and several other writings of
kindred nature) in his Ethica a short, popular, little-digested, but
plain and Gospel-inspired synopsis of New Testament ethics,--comprised
in eighty rules expressed in strictly Biblical forms. In other respects
he manifests indeed an over-estimation of monasticism and of outward
works in general, as well as an under-estimation of the natural
corruption of man. His brother, Gregory of Nyssa, likewise emphasized
moral freedom quite strongly, even in man while as yet unregenerate,
and applied many of the ideas of Greek philosophy to Christian ethics,
and moreover found also the moral ideal in the monkish life.--This life
was still more exalted by Gregory of Nazianzus, who also presents
already quite definitely the doctrine of the evangelical counsels as
distinguished from the universally-binding moral laws, [110] although
in other respects he gives expression to many excellent thoughts on
Christian ethics.--The liberally-cultured, John Chrysostom,--who was no
less profound in feeling than rich in thoughts and in acquaintance with
man, and who was inspired with high moral earnestness and moral
love,--presents in his masterly Homilies an essentially pure,
evangelical and deep-reaching moral view, in a striking, warm and clear
style,--to such an extent as no other Church Father has done; and even
where, in the delineation of the natural conscience and of its freedom,
he presents, by the help of philosophical examples, the favorable
phases rather too prominently, and where he treats over-fondly of
monasticism and the monkish life, and ascribes, in repentance, too high
a value to outward works, especially to fasting and alms-giving, still
the evangelical ground-thought is by no means pushed into the
back-ground. Love to God is, with him, the ground, the beginning, the
essence of all morality. His somewhat idealistic turn of mind betrays
him sometimes into unpractical views, e. g., into the wish (born of his
love to monasticism) for the introduction of a community of goods.
[111] --Imitating Chrysostom also in his weaker points, the likewise
philosophically educated abbot, Isidore of Pelusium, treated, in
numerous epistles, largely of special topics in ethics, and sometimes
bordered on Pelagian views.
In the more practically-inclined and less dogmatically-rent Occident,
we find, already in the fourth century, more comprehensive treatises on
the moral subject-matter of Christianity, but--as differing from the
more idealistic and philosophic Greek doctors--in a rather realistic,
legal, juridical manner; and it is characteristic that precisely the
most excellent of the ethical writers among the Latin Fathers were
originally jurists and rhetoricians.--Lactantius, in his Institutiones
divinae (III-VI), treats of the ethical quite largely, critically
assailing heathen ethics, and defending spiritedly the ethics of
Christianity. The highest good, as the ground-question of ethics, lie
finds in the blissful communion of the immortal spirit with God, a
communion which is to be attained to only in the Christian religion,
and of which, in heathendom, not even the conception is to be found.
Christianity alone, but not heathen philosophy, affords a knowledge of
the moral goal, and of the moral way, and furnishes also in Christ the
moral example, and moral strength, and lastly, in pure unselfish love,
the true moral motive. The unchurchly and dualistically-inclining
notion entertained by Lactantius, of a certain primitively-ordained
necessity of evil (ii, 8, 9, 12; vi, 15; De ira Dei, 55) has not much
interfered with his other moral thoughts.--Ethics attains, in a feeble
and ill-adapted outward imitation of Cicero, to a scientific form,
though without really scientific development, through the labors of
Ambrose, whose work De officiis ministrorum, though for a long time
highly prized, is yet rhetorical in style, and feeble in scientific
contents; and yet, notwithstanding that it introduces, undigested, many
foreign thoughts and forms into the field of Christian thought in order
to conceal a manifest lack of theological culture, it still commends
itself by the warmth of a sincere heart, by its enthusiasm for active
piety and by ingenious trains of thought. Though treating in this work
primarily of the duties of clergymen, Ambrose yet considers also pretty
extensively those of Christians in general; as a whole, however, it has
little order and consecutiveness, and, notwithstanding its frequent
prolixity and repetitions, leaves many points but slightly touched. He
cites many Biblical examples, especially from the Old Testament; in his
exegetical method he is quite faulty; that which is not expressly
taught in Scripture either by word or example, he regards as unallowed,
e. g., jesting. The four virtutes principales (the expression virtutes
cardinales occurs only in the manifestly unauthentic work, De
sacramentis), he adopts from Plato; he gives them, however, a much
higher significancy; and, by finding for them a greater unity in piety
and love, as also by penetrating deeper into the subjectivity of the
love-inspired and morally-acting heart, he demonstrates, despite all
his defectiveness in scientific construction, the great superiority of
Christian ethics over heathen. He places the highest good in the bliss
resulting from a knowledge of God, and in moral perfection, the two
being inseparably connected with each other. A preference for celibacy
he shares with his contemporaries, but in enthusiastic laudations
thereof he even outdoes most of them. The duty of beneficence he pushes
so far that, like Chrysostom, he passes over into advocacy of a
voluntary community of goods (i, 28); and he regards self-defense, even
in case of murderous assault, as unallowable. The
scientifically-insignificant exegetical writings of Ambrose deal also
very largely with ethical questions.--St. Jerome, in such of his
writings as treat of the moral, is, for the most part, intent on
exalting the, by him, fanatically espoused monastic life, but rather
rhetorically than scientifically, and with frequent inconsistencies;
treating marriage disdainfully, and in fact hostilely, he finds any
good in it at all only because it produces children who may devote
themselves to the unmarried life (Ep. 22, 20, ad Elustoch., ed Veron.,
t. i); his passionately violent assailing of Jovinian (in Rome) who
contested the meritoriousness of the monastic life and of ascetic
works, found in the spirit of the age great applause.
Much higher in spirit and penetration than the views of the other Latin
Fathers, stand St. Augustine's ethical disquisitions,--De doctrina
christiana, De civitate dei, De moribus ecclesicae catholicae, De
libero arbitrio, and other works--without, however, presenting a
connected ethical system. In Augustine the Occidental church not only
manifests her radical antithesis to the fundamental and dangerous
errors of the Pelagian school, but she further develops at the same
time the ethically-significant and healthful antithesis to the more
dogmatically and theosophico-speculatively inclined Greek church,
namely, in that this Father emphasized much more strongly than did the
Greek church the antagonism of the natural man to God as well as man's
moral impotency, and hence his need of redemption, and also in that he
conceived the Christianly-moral life as the expression of a complete
spiritual transformation, whereas the Greek Fathers tended to regard it
rather as a bettering of the, in his moral essence, but
slightly-disordered natural man. Occidental ethics makes more reference
to the Saviour; Oriental, more to the Creator; the former has therefore
conceived more deeply, than the latter, the moral consciousness of
Christianity, and has developed it more fully. And from this time on,
the history of Christian ethics finds but little that is worthy of
attention outside of the current of Occidental thought. As it was the
special task of the Greek church to ward off from the Christian
doctrine of God and of Christ, all heathen and Judaistic notions, and
definitively to refute them, so was it the task of the Latin church to
confute and overcome these same elements in the field of ethics; and
this task was in the main accomplished by St. Augustine. The freedom of
the will as it appears in the Greek church, and especially also in
Chrysostom, is by no means identical with the freedom of the
regenerated Christian as insisted upon by the evangelical church, and
the confidence which many of the Greek Fathers place in the moral
inclination of the piously-stirred heart, is not yet free from every
trace of that over-estimation of the purity of human nature so
characteristic of heathenism; also moral action is as yet obscured by
the thought of the meritoriousness of the same. These remaining traces
of heathen and Jewish views were, in their ground-thought at least,
eradicated by Augustine; the thought of unmerited grace whereby man
attained to the capability of a moral life, and to the highest good,
was placed by him in the foreground, and thus the foundation was laid
for a true evangelical ethical system. His doctrine (far exceeding
Scripture warrant) of the total unfreedom, for good, of the natural
will and of an unconditional election of grace, has a less misleading
influence on his moral views than might have been expected,--it simply
gives to them the character of deep earnestness, but does not dampen
the power of moral admonition.--Man in his enslavement under sin to
moral unfreedom is raised to real moral freedom only on the basis of a
divine election of grace, by means of a spiritual regeneration through
faith in Christ. Natural man is not able to will and to accomplish the
truly good; the virtues of heathen and of unbelievers, though indeed
often very admirable, have yet no real merit, no truly moral worth.
Between virtue and vice there lies no medium ground; whatever is not
virtue, and hence whatever springs not from faith, from the right
intentio, is necessarily sinful; natural man is free only to evil; even
the desire for redemption is lacking to him, and is purely a work of
gracious influence. Still there are among sin-dominated humanity great
differences of personal guilt, and even the heathen have yet a free
choice between the more, and the less, evil; to true righteousness,
however, they cannot attain.--The destination of man, and hence his
moral goal and the highest good, is to return to God from whom he has
fallen away, to become reunited with Him by God-likeness. This is
possible only through love to God, which is consequently the ground and
essence of all good. The world and whatever belongs to it, is not the
goal of moral effort,--is not the highest good itself, but only a means
to this end. Love to the world in itself is therefore not true moral
love, but is only lust; spirit never has true love save to spirit. But
man is not to himself the highest end, because he is not per se capable
of blessedness; the highest end, and hence the highest object of love,
is God, upon whom all blessedness rests. All true love rests on love to
God, and to love men otherwise than in God, is sinful; also self-love
is only then moral when it flows from love to God. Hence love to God is
the first and highest command, and the one from which all others
spring; this love works obedience to God's command, wherein alone rests
all the moral worth of an action; love is the sole true motive to the
good,--fear is only a feeble incipiency of wisdom. Hence virtue is in
its essence simply love to God, is nothing other than ordo amoris,
[112] and therefore obedience to the divine will, which will is the
eternal law of all morality.
Love to God as the ground-virtue unfolds itself into the four cardinal
virtues: TEMPERANTIA, amor integrum se pracbens ei, quod amatur;
FORTITUDO, amor facile tolerans omnia propter quod amartur; JUSTITIA,
amor soli amato serviens et propterea recte dominans; PRUDENTIA, amor
ea, quibus adjuvatur, ab eis, quibus impeditur, sagaciter seligens.
[113] It is with great ingenuity that the Greek classification of
virtue is thus embraced and presented in higher unity, as an unfolding
of love under four forms, but the violence of the process is too
manifest not to make felt at once the unadaptedness of the Greek
classification for the Christian idea; it is new wine in old vessels.
To these virtues, borrowed from Greek philosophy, Augustine adds, as
superordinate thereto, the three virtues subsequently known as the
theological virtues: faith, love and hope, without succeeding in
placing them into a clear relation to the other four; [114] and this
unclear and clumsy twofold classification prevails from now henceforth
and until the close of the Middle Ages. Faith springs from the merely
germinal love to God; but only from faith springs the true
all-dominating love to God, and from faith and love springs hope,
namely, a longing for the highest good, for the blissful enjoyment of
God in union with Him, in the vision of Him,--in perfected love;
objectively therefore the highest good is God himself as the perfect
truth, the infinite eternal life itself.
Evil or sin is in essence and origin a lack of true love, that is, a
love not to God but to the world and its lusts, and primarily a love to
self that does not rest on love to God, that is self-seeking. From
self-seeking springs evil desire (concupiscentia) which becomes a power
over the spirit. Evil become real in no sense whatever from God, but
through the free choice, through the guilt, of free creatures,--is a
guilty ruining of the originally good. The distinction (referring
primarily to the administration and practice of penance) between venial
and mortal sins (peccata venalia et mortifera s. mortalia), Augustine
defines in the thenceforth prevailing sense, thus,--that the latter
include all sins consciously and voluntarily committed against the
Decalogue, and particularly idolatry, adultery, and murder, which,
unless atoned for by ecclesiastical penance, involve damnation, whereas
the former may be atoned for, or gotten rid of, by the repentant person
himself, without special church-penance, through prayer, alms-giving
and fasting. [115]
As to the requirements of morality in detail, Augustine is no less
earnest than judicious, forming quite a contrast to the manifold
laxities of the age, and to many errors and extreme views of earlier
Church Fathers, and, on the whole, he conceived of Christian morality
much more profoundly than had yet been done by church writers; but his
more especial merit consists in this, that he brought clearly and
definitely into prominence the foundation of all morality, namely,
faith and the essence of faith, to wit, love to God, and that he
referred the validity of outward works more definitely than had been
done before to the inner disposition of the actor. A truly evangelical
spirit breathes through the greater part of his moral views; and even
where, in harmony with the spirit of the times, he laudingly emphasizes
outward good works, and particularly fasting, alms-giving and monastic
asceticism, he still always lays greater stress on the state of the
heart than on the work itself. His greatest departure from a purely
evangelical consciousness is the recognition of the, then, already
long-prevalent distinction between the divine commands and the divine
counsels; the latter refer essentially to the giving up of allowed
enjoyments, and especially to the abstaining from marriage. The man who
leaves the counsels unobserved, sins not; he who fulfills them,
acquires for himself higher virtue; wedlock-virtue is merely human
virtue, but virginal chastity is angelic virtue. Marriage is indeed per
se holy and pure, and prevailed also in the state of sinlessness, [116]
but for the state of sinfulness, from which in fact the redeemed are
not as yet totally free, celibacy is higher than marriage; and if all
men would but live unmarried, there would thereby be straightway
brought about the end of the world and the perfection of the kingdom of
God. [117] But Augustine wisely avoids the self-contradictory extremes
of Jerome, and tolerates even second marriages.--In contrast to heathen
ethics, which looks, for all salvation, to the State and to its
unlimited sway, Christians, even in the days of Augustine, placed (not
without very good reasons) very little confidence in the worldly State.
The Christian state--to the realization of which the. Germanic nations
were more especially called--had not yet become real; and the
nominally-Christian Roman State lingered as yet essentially in heathen
forms. In his ingenious work De civitate dei, Augustine contrasts with
the earthly State the purely spiritual divine State, deriving the
former from the self-seeking of God-forsaking man, as prevailing since
the brother-murder of Cain,--since which time the earthly and heavenly
State have been in a condition of divorce (xv, 5). "The two kinds of
love produced two kinds of state: the earthly state springs from
self-love which ripens into contempt of God; the heavenly, from love to
God which ripens into contempt of self" (xiv, 28). The divine State
develops itself independently of the sinful earthly one, until it
attains to its true manifestation in Christ; this state is not an
outwardly force-exercising one, but a spiritual kingdom, and is indeed
destined to sanctify and transfigure the earthly State,--to change it
from a merely world-state into an organ of the divine state, but not to
merge itself into it.
The great decline of the scientific life in the Occident from and after
the close of the fifth century, manifested its effects also in the
field of ethics. Little more was done than to make collections of the
opinions (sententiae) of the Fathers, and to apply them to purposes of
Church-discipline and of popular instruction. But there was no further
creative production. In reducing to greater system the discipline of
penance, the interest was turned rather to the discriminating, defining
and classifying of sins than to the scientific examination of the moral
in general. The knowledge of Greek ethics disappeared almost entirely,
and the work of Boethius, De consolatione philosophiae (about A.D.
542), [118] --which is but feebly touched with Christian influence, and
which for the most part expresses, eclectively, mere Graeco-Roman
philosophy,--passed in the earlier Middle Ages for an excellent work of
Christian philosophy.--Gregory the Great, basing himself on Augustine,
wrote moral expositions (Moralia) of the Book of Job, of Solomon's
Song, etc., and other rather edificatory than scientific works of the
same class; most influential was his Regula pastoralis, which treated
of the clerical calling more especially under its moral phase. Isidore
of Hispalis (Seville) (ob. 636) treats, especially in his Sententiae,
on many moral points, mostly, however, by way of judicious digesting
from preceding Fathers, especially from Augustine and Gregory the
Great,--furnishing for the early Middle Ages a principal help in
ethical study.--In the Greek Church Maximus the Confessor (ob. 622)
gives in his "Chapters on Love" [119] a tolerably complete presentation
of ethics; John Damascenus (ob. 754) furnishes, in his chief work, the
ground thoughts for an ethical treatise, and in his "Holy Parallels" a
rich collection of patristic sentences.
Standing entirely apart, and of influence only in the Middle Ages, is
the pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite (fifth century) who introduced
Neo-Platonic mysticism into Christianity, and whose
Pantheistically-inclined world-theory invades here and there also the
moral sphere. [120] God is all in all,--is the being in all being, the
life in all that lives, is the good absolutely. Hence evil cannot exist
by itself, but must always be a negating something on the good,--is not
an existing something, but essentially only a lack and more an
appearance than a reality, and it turns again into the good. The goal
of all life, and hence also of the moral, is the returning into God,
the changing into God, of whatever is as yet distinct from God; the
highest wisdom is therefore the turning-away of the spirit from
whatever is not God,--the unclouded beholding of the one, the nameless,
the pure divine light, in which God directly imparts himself to man. An
outwardly active morality is, according to this view, the opposite of
true wisdom.
__________________________________________________________________
[104] The ethical views of the Ebionites and Gnostics offer many
interesting phases, but they have too little influence in the shaping
of the ethics of the church, and are, without a fuller examination, too
obscure to justify us in entering upon the subject here at all: comp.
Neander: Gesch. d. christl. Sittenl., pp. 111, 137.
[105] Heyns: De patrum ap. doctrina morali, 1833; Van Gilse, the same
subject, 1833.
[106] De poenit., c. 2, 6; De pudicitia, c. 2, 19; comp. Adv. Marc., 4,
9.
[107] De idolol., c. 1 sqq.
[108] De idol., c. 17, 18, 21.
[109] De corona militis, c. 11; De idol., c. 19.
[110] Orat. III, invect. in Jul., p. 94 sqq. (ed. Col.); Orat. iv, c.
97 sqq. (ed. Bened.)
[111] Homil. in Act., opp. (ed. Montf.) ix, 93.
[112] De civ. dei, xv, 22.
[113] De moribus eccl., c. 15 (25) sqq., 25 (46); De lib. arb., 1, 13;
2, 10.
[114] Enchiridion, s. de fide, spe et charitate; de doctr. christ., 1,
37; 3, 10, et al.
[115] Sermo, 351; Enchir., 70, 71; comp. De fide et op., c. 19 (34); De
civ. dei, 21, 27.
[116] De Genesi ad litt., 9, 3 sqq., 7.
[117] De Sancta virginitate; De bono conjugali; De nuptiis et concupis.
[118] Fr. Nitzsch: System des Boeth., 1860, p. 42 sqq.
[119] Kephalaia peri agapes.
[120] Especially in De divinis nominibus; De coelesti hierarchia; De
myst. theol.
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__________________________________________________________________
II. THE MIDDLE AGES.
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SECTION XXXII.
The ecclesiastical consciousness, as having arrived now at greater
repose, but as also in a state of spiritual paralysis, limits itself
primarily to the preserving and digesting of the views already-attained
to, and to the constructing of systems of life-rules on the basis of
the decisions of the Fathers and of church councils,--at best
elucidated anew by examples from the Scriptures or from the legends of
the saints. The practical decisions on the subject of church penance
gave rise gradually, in connection with these collections of rules, to
a very minutely-specifying system of casuistry, which, however, related
primarily chiefly to transgressions. The moral views themselves were
already largely estranged from evangelical purity, and an ascetic
monk-morality, not binding upon all, passed as the ideal of Christian
virtue, while the general morality, binding upon all, was to a large
degree neglected.
The libri poenitentiales, for the use of confessors, are based for the
most part on the decisions of synods and on ancient practice, but are
also in some degree complemented by their respective authors; they give
for the most part little more than imperfectly classified and
illogically connected registers of single sins and of the
church-penances and penalties imposed therefor, the latter of course
without established and certain norms (Theodore of Canterbury, Bede,
Halitgarius and others). These books form the beginning of a
casuistical treatment of ethics, which was subsequently extended to
other questions than sins, especially to cases of conscience.--Attempts
at a more independent and more connected, but yet, on the whole, purely
practical treatment of ethics--mostly simply on single points,--were
made by Alcuin (De virtutibus et vitiis; De ratione animae), largely
borrowing from Augustine; also by Rhabanus Maurus, by Jonas, Bishop of
Orleans (about 828), by the earnestly sin-rebuking Ratherius of Verona
(ob. 974), by Damani (ob. 1072), the excessive eulogist of
self-castigation, and by the learned Fulbert of Chartres (ob. 1029).
In proportion as the zeal of love abated, and worldly-mindedness
increased in the church at large, in the same proportion arose, as in
antithesis to this secularism of the church, a zeal for a special
holiness transcending the general morality required of all. Directions
for the monkish life form a favorite topic for ecclesiastical
moralists; the merits of the ascetic life are more warmly lauded than
the practical Christian life in the civil or domestic spheres, and
wedlock is progressively more deeply disparaged as in contrast to
entire renunciation; consorts are loaded with praise, who divorce
themselves in order to practice such renunciation; and according to
Damiani's assertion, even St. Peter had to undergo the martyr-death in
order to wash away the stains of his wedlock-life (De perfectione
monach, c. 6).
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXXIII.
The philosophy of the Middle Ages, and especially Scholasticism, was
occupied for a long while almost exclusively with speculations on
dogmatical and metaphysical questions, leaving ethics almost untouched;
wherever, however, it brought ethics within the sphere of its
intellectual activity, there it treated the same merely in connection
with dogmatics, and for the most part in the light of the opinions of
Augustine, and, later, of those of Plato and Aristotle,--often
bunglingly combining the latter with the former.--The brilliant but
idealistico-Pantheistically inclined mystical philosophy of John Scotus
Erigena, which threw its lights, as well as its shades, into the field
of morality, seems--as not understood--to have had little influence on
subsequent ethics, save in the mystical school.
The spiritualistico-idealistic tendency of the Schoolmen could
primarily treat of the moral only collaterally, at least until the
dogmatical and metaphysical fields had attained to some degree of
philosophical maturity and self-consciousness. The potent influence of
Augustine made itself felt also in the ethical field, and his
ground-thoughts re-appear in almost all the Schoolmen. The freedom of
the will is, however, distinctly recognized, although, in man after the
fall, as in a trammeled condition; but also Greek philosophy was
powerfully influential on ethics, not merely as to the form, but also
as to the subject-matter. The Platonic classification of the virtues
was already early combined with the three theological virtues,
notwithstanding the inconsistency and impracticability of such a
uniting of two entirely different stand-points. In how far John Scotus'
attempted translation of Aristotle's Ethics into Latin was of
influence, is doubtful; the application of Aristotle to Christian
ethics appears in a more direct form, first, in the thirteenth century.
The deep-thinking John Scotus Erigena (at the court of Charles the
Bald, then at Oxford, ob. 886), who was not understood by his own age,
and who had but little connection with it even in his errors, touches
in his chief work, De divisione naturae, also upon the more general
ethical topics, and molds them to his idealistico-Pantheistical
system,--a system based on the Neo-Platonic views of Dionysius the
Areopagite, and which--very different from recent naturalistic
Pantheism--denies not the absolute personal God, but on the contrary
the independent reality of the world. The world is only another
existence-form of the eternal God himself; God alone is real; the
creature, in so far as it is conceived as distinct from God, is
nothing; it exists only in so far as it is wholly identical with God.
God is whatever truly exists, because He himself does all and is in
all; Good in not merely the most excellent part of the creature, but He
is its beginning, its middle and its end--the essence and true being in
all things. The coming into being of the world is a self-outpouring of
God, a theophany. God is manifest not only in Christ, but also in the
entire universe,--in the highest degree in the rational creature, and
here indeed most purely in the saints. The believing and cognizing of
the saints take place solely through God; God cognizes himself in man
as cognizing Him. Man is therefore God's image, because God himself
comes to manifestation in him. As now every thing ideal, and hence the
ideal world, precedes, in the mind of God, its outward realization, so
is also the spirit of man earlier than his body,--which latter is but
the shadow of the spirit, and is in fact by it created, and that too as
a perfect and immortal one (ii, 24).--Man, however, is now no longer in
the condition in which he originally was; the body is frail and subject
to death; this condition can have been brought about only by sin. But
how is sin possible if God is in fact all in all? Answer: every thing
is real only in so far as it is good; but in so far as it is not good,
it exists not. Hence evil is a mere non-being, a merely negative
something, but in no sense a real entity. God can cognize only that
which is, not that which is not,-- hence He cognizes and knows not
evil; for if He knew it, then it would be real, and hence would not be
evil (ii, 28). This normal Dei ignorantia banishes evil from the sphere
of being into that of mere appearance. All evil is merely the shadow of
the good, and is accordingly only upon the good,--is essentially only a
lack,--a non-being, not a positive entity. Sin consists in this, that
man, as on the one hand identical with, and, on the other, distinct
from God, fixes his attention solely upon this distinctness from
God,--directs himself toward himself and toward nature, and not toward
God (i, 68; ii, 12, 25). Only by this confessedly per se inexplicable
(v. 36) fall into sin, is it that the body of man became material and
mortal and a clog to the spiritual life (ii, 25, 26; comp. iv, 12, 14,
15, 20); man thereby ceased to be truly a spirit,--became subject to
natural desires; previously the lord of nature, he now became a slave
to it.--The ultimate goal of all life, and hence also of the moral, is
the return into God (ii, 2, 11), namely, so that this differentness
from God, all corporeality and individuality, ceases and passes over
into God himself,--is transformed into Him (i, 10; v, 20, 27, 37, 38).
Hence all moral effort is directed toward this uniting of one's self
with God, toward the breaking down of the hampering limits of
individual naturality, and realizes itself in a gradually progressive
development (v, 8, 39). Morality must accordingly bear a predominantly
spiritualistic and ascetic, negating character,--must disdainfully turn
itself away from finite reality (iv, 5). Into details Erigena enters
but little. It is perfectly consequential in him that he regards
marriage, which rests on the difference of the sexes, as having
originated solely in consequence of sin, whereas sinless man was
sexless (ii, 6; iv, 12, 23). And yet marriage is now allowable, only,
however, in view of the propagation of the race, irrespective of
sensuous pleasure. Though the mystico-speculative bases of these
ethical thoughts were of a very unchurchly character, still the
thoughts themselves answered very well to the ascetic spirit of the
then prevalent morality.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXXIV.
It is only in the twelfth century that ethics is seriously treated of
by scholastic science;--first by Hildebert of Tours (ob. 1134), for the
most part in the light of the Roman Eclectic and Stoic
philosophies;--then by Abelard, who, however, treats, mostly in a mere
preliminary manner, of the more general questions, giving proof of
great acumen, but also sometimes enfeebling the significancy of
sin;--very fruitfully by Peter Lombard, who presents, in the light of
Augustinian thoughts, and with the help of ancient philosophy, a very
clear and well-arranged total of Christian doctrine, of which ethics,
though but briefly presented, constitutes an essential part;--but with
greatest thoroughness and fullness by Thomas Aquinas, who made large
use of the Aristotelian philosophy in perfecting a system of Christian
speculation, and that, too, without thereby working serious detriment
to the Christian idea.-- In Duns Scotus a sophistico-skeptical
treatment of ethics began already to effect, in many respects, an
enfeebling of the moral idea, and to prepare the way for the
double-dealing morality of the Jesuits.--Through almost all the
scholastic presentations of ethics there prevails a pretty great
uniformity of spirit and manner of treatment, springing mostly from
Augustine and Aristotle, and subsequently from Peter Lombard and Thomas
Aquinas; evangelico-theological and ethnico-philosophical elements are
often brought together, without that the latter element is always
successfully mastered and molded into a Christian character. Ingenious
and often truly speculative processes of thought, but frequently also
trivial and fruitless hair-splittings, also a pedantic carrying out of
particular schemata, and a preference for certain typical numbers in
the distribution of the subject-matter,--such are the general
characteristics of scholastic ethics.
Contemporaneously with scholasticism prevailed also the science of
casuistry, which had also to do with practical life; this science was
ill fact influenced by scholasticism to a higher development, and it
attained to its highest perfection in the fourteenth and fifteenth
centuries.
Hildebert of Tours (about 1100) treated ethics for the first time in a
special work: Philosophia moralis de honesto et utili (Opp. Par. 1708,
p. 961 sqq). In philosophical contents it is as yet feeble and
dependent, and belongs rather to the sphere of Roman popular
philosophy, especially that of Cicero and Seneca, than to speculative
science proper; and the Christian element is thrown largely into the
shade by that which is borrowed from heathen moralists; the four Greek
virtues are servilely carried out; the relation of the honestum and
utile is extensively discussed; and as a whole the work is immature and
superficial. --Nearly cotemporaneously appears Abelard's Ethica, s.
Scito te ipsum,--not a comprehensive system, but properly only a
philosophico-theological introduction to ethics; it treats somewhat
un-uniformly of general questions, and particularly of the essence of
sin and of its imputation. The toning-down of Christian
thoughts,--elsewhere observable in Abelard, in his over-estimating the
natural capability of man,--shows itself also here. He distinguishes
between a natural tendency to evil (called by him a "will") and the
freely-resolved approving of the same; the former is not per se sinful
and forbidden of God, for it has its seat in the sensuous and fragile
nature of man, and it is not even yet a sin when it overcomes the
reason; it becomes sin only by a real approving of sin; and it is for
the simple reason that there is a natural tendency to evil in us, that
the virtuous opposing of it becomes a moral desert. From this it
follows, on the one hand, that man, in virtue of his very nature,
cannot avoid all evil, though indeed this unavoidable evil is not
imputed to him as guilt, and, on the other, that the essence of sin
consists wholly and alone in the conscious choosing of it, and neither
in the evil tendency preceding it, nor in the act proceeding therefrom.
By the carrying-out of an evil intention the guilt of that intention
becomes not greater, and by the omitting of its carrying-out, not less.
Moral merit and guilt lie consequently entirely and alone in the
disposition; actions themselves, per se considered, are morally
indifferent. Hence he who does a bad act without a bad intention, does
not sin. True, there is necessary also in order to the truly good not
merely a well-meaning, but also a correctly-cognizing intention.
Therefore it is that, while, because of the heathens' lack of a correct
knowledge of the law and the truth, their unbelief and even their
persecuting of the Christian martyrs cannot be imputed to them as real
sins, yet, on the other hand, they cannot without faith become really
saved; and the prayer of Christ on the cross for his persecutors shows
that they did wrong in ignorance, and were in need of
forgiveness.--There are thoughts here in Abelard which, while per se
true, are yet one-sidedly pushed into the extreme, and thereby become
erroneous. Thus, he explains the distinction, prevalent in the ethics
of the Middle Ages, between mortal and venial sins, to mean this, that
under the latter we are to understand those the immorality of which is
indeed known to us in general, but is not clearly conscious and present
to our mind at the moment of our consenting to them, and which are
consequently committed rather in a state of forgetfulness. The ethics
of Abelard was, not without reason, severely assailed by Bernard of
Clairvaux, and is in many respects a fore-runner of the system of the
Jesuits; but in his own day the conscience of the church was as yet
somewhat quick and tender, and the synod of Sens (1140) expressly
condemned the more questionable features of the same.
The subject of ethics was treated with great skill, but rather
ingeniously than profoundly, by Peter Lombard (ob. 1160), more
especially in the third book of his Libri sententiarum,--a work which
was for later schoolmen a very influential model and a high authority,
though the relatively brief manner of treatment touches only upon the
principal points. With a fully-developed system we are not as yet
furnished; it is rather a dialectical analysis and examination of ideas
than a profound speculative development from a fundamental principle.
The ethical notions are presented first in definitions, then proved and
illustrated by texts from Scripture and from the Fathers, and thereupon
follow dialectical inquiries, comparisons of opposed views, and a
definitive judgment.
The notion "good" has both an objective and a subjective significancy.
The good as object is the goal of the subjective good, the good will;
this good object is blessedness; eternal life in God, and hence God
himself in so far as he comes into communion with man (II, Dist. 38,
40). The presupposition of all morally good is will-freedom. This
freedom is primarily a threefold one: freedom from necessity, freedom
from sin as a dominating power, and freedom from misery. The first is
unforfeitable,--exists also in sinful man; the second is enjoyed by the
redeemed, the third by the saved. Before the fall man had perfect
freedom,--could, by his own strength, keep free from sin, though not
attain to perfection save as aided by divine grace, as, on the other
hand, he could in his own strength also turn to sin. Hence will-freedom
is that capacity of the rational will whereby it, by the assistance of
divine grace (gracia assistente), chooses the good, or, by not sharing
in the same (eadem desistente), the evil. In the rational will there is
a natural striving, though but feeble (licet tenuiter et exiliter), to
choose the good; but, by the assistance of grace, it becomes powerful
and efficacious (eficaciter), whereas man per se can effectually turn
to evil. By the possibility of choice in the two directions, human
liberty differs from divine liberty, which latter can eternally choose
only the good. After the fall into sin, the truth: poterat peccare et
not peccare, was changed into, potest peccare et non potest non
peccare; that is, into a freedom very much trammeled indeed, though not
yet sunk to necessity; the inwardly enfeebled and corrupted nature of
man impels him constantly to sin, and allows him not to will and to
accomplish the truly good. The redeemed, however, is free from this
predominancy of evil desire,--has indeed as yet moral weakness, but
also the assistance of divine grace; hence he can also yet sin,--in
fact it is still true of him: non posse non peccare, but only as to
venial sins, not as to mortal sins. In his ultimate perfection,
however, the redeemed attains to a condition transcending the condition
of unfallen man, namely: non posse peccare,--where all weakness is
overcome, and man has risen to a moral impossibility of choosing evil;
thus the threefold freedom becomes a fourfold one (II, Dist: 24, 25).
Virtue is the right quality of the human will as turned toward the
good. The ground-virtue is, therefore, love to God, as the substance of
all good; and all virtues are closely involved in each other, so that
he who truly possesses one, possesses them all, and he to whom one is
lacking, lacks them all; no one can have simply one virtue, for love is
the mother of all the virtues, and he who has the mother has also the
children (III, Dist. 36). In agreement with Augustine, Peter Lombard
presents three chief-virtues. which, however, are only different phases
of the one love to God, namely: faith, hope, love (fides, spes,
charitas). (1) FIDES est virtus, qua creduntur, quae non videntur,
namely, in the sphere of the religious; this faith is threefold:)--(a)
credere DEO, to believe the word of God; (b) credere DEUM, to believe
in the existence of God; both these forms of faith are possible to the
evil; (c) credere IN DEUM, to love God in faith, and to unite one's
self with him; this is true faith, which leads also to truly good works
(III, Dist. 23). (2) SPES est virtus, qua spiritualia et aeterna bona
sperantu, i. e., cum fiducia exspectantur. This virtue is only briefly
and insufficiently developed, and is not clearly enough distinguished
from the first; for the statement that hope refers only to future good,
while faith refers also to evil and to the past and to the present
(III, Dist., 26), gives, after all, only the difference of a part from
the whole. (3) CHARITAS est dilectio, qua diligitur deus propter se, et
proximus propter deum vel in deo; God must be loved for his own sake,
but our neighbor (and every human being is such) only for God's sake
(III, Dist. 27 sqq.).--From another point of view,--and which is not
properly brought into harmony with the first, but only joined to
it--four other virtues (virtutes principales vel cardinales) are
adopted, after the example of Plato and Augustine, and presented,
namely: justitia, fortitudo (which manifests itself in suffering),
prudentia, and temperantia (III, 33); after which, without any further
development of these four virtues, are given the seven gifts of the
Holy Spirit (taken from Isa. xi, 2, 3, in the Vulgate version, namely:
wisdom, understanding, counsel, strength, knowledge, piety,
God-fearing), as the conditions of the practice of virtue, and as
spiritual virtues. Some further discussion of special points is given
in connection with a presentation of the ten commandments and of the
sacraments.
In the steps of Peter Lombard follows, in all essential points,
Alexander Hales (ob. 1245), though he develops some points more fully,
and contributes thereto original matter,--especially is this the case
in his discussion of the moral law, which he distinguishes into the
natural, the Mosaic, and the evangelical (Summa univ. theol., pars
III). He separates the moral part of theology more distinctly than had
yet been done from the dogmatical, as the "doctrine of manners," and
distributes it into the doctrine, first, of the divine law, second, of
grace and the virtues, and, third, of the fruit of virtue.--(William of
Paris [ob. 1249] discussed the more important points of morality in
separate treatises grounded on Augustine and Aristotle). More learned,
and especially distinguished by extensive use of Aristotle, are the
ethical portions of the writings of Albertus Magnus (ob. 1280), though
in other respects they do not contain very, much original speculation,
and in some respects they show already a strong casuistical tendency.
It is through Thomas Aquinas that scholastic ethics was most highly
perfected both in form and in substance, and raised to a system of
profound speculation. His great work, Summa theologiae, prima et
secunda secundae, combines, in comprehensive thoroughness, a clear
intellectual insight with deep religious knowledge and moral life
experience. The style of presentation is indeed somewhat discursive,
especially in the citing and refuting of opposite opinions, and runs
often into unprofitable distinctions and splittings of ideas, but the
substantial contents are in the main so sound and excellent, that the
almost autocratical authority enjoyed by Thomas Aquinas, especially in
the field of ethics--(an authority which has maintained itself unabated
in the Romish Church up to the present day)--is essentially a
well-merited one; the later ethics of the Romish Church could indeed
fall below this model, but it has not surpassed it; and also for
Protestant ethics have the works of this author been of great
influence, and they are even yet of weighty import.
The ethics of Thomas Aquinas, which is directly connected with his
dogmatics, is distributed into a general and a special part, of which
the former treats of the virtues and vices in general, and the latter
of the same in detail, so that the whole is made to appear
predominantly, though not exclusively, as the doctrine of virtue.--Man
is the image of God principally in virtue of his reason; but an
essential element of reason is the freedom of the will, namely, the
free determining of our own activity. All activity, and hence also that
of irrational creatures, has an end; hence human activity must have a
rational end, and one which man knows as such, and which is aimed at by
free will-determination, whereas irrational creatures seek their end
unconsciously and from natural instinct. But rational ends are such
only in so far as they do not constitute a mere interminable plurality,
but converge and terminate in one last and highest good, upon which
consequently all rational activity is directed. This one highest end,
and hence the highest good, which the rational creature seeks to attain
to, cannot consist in outward, perishable, and hence unessential
things, but only in the one absolutely imperishable, the divine,
namely, in communion with God, and hence in the absolutely perfect life
of the rational creature,--in blessedness. God is the objective,
blessedness the subjective, phase of the highest good. The human soul
per se, and without being united with God, cannot be happy; hence the
highest good is not a something belonging to the soul per se,--has its
ground not in the soul but in God; the highest good in its objective
phase, considered as an object, is not a created, but an uncreated and
divine entity, which, however, is appropriated to himself by man. But
this uncreated entity cannot be appropriated by sensuous perception,
but solely through a spiritual grasping, through cognizing, through
spiritual beholding or intuiting. Hence blessedness rests on an
intuiting of God, and toward this, therefore, the rational activity of
the soul is directed. This blessedness, as resting on the highest
activity of the reason, cannot be wholly reached in this earthly,
manifoldly-limited and dependent life, and, moreover, as being of an
unending nature, it cannot be merited by finite actions,--it can only
be appropriated by religious intuition, by contemplation, namely, in
that God lovingly imparts himself, and therewith at the same time
blessedness, to man. This appropriating is, however, not a merely
passive bearing, not a will-less beholding, but a willing, loving, and
love-enjoying embracing of the divine. In that the rational striving
attains to perfect satisfaction and rest in God as the highest good,
blessedness is enjoyment, the feeling of delight; this is, however, but
one of the phases of blessedness,--the other is the visional
cognizing.--The will of man,--ever directed toward a good,--is indeed
free,--can be forced neither through an outward nor through an inward
power to a given choice, nor is it so forced by God, for God leaves
every created being to act according to its inborn nature; and hence
the will can direct itself as well to a false and merely seeming good,
as to the true good,--but this true good itself stands not within the
free determination of man, but is absolutely determined by God and by
the inner necessity of the case itself; man can, freely-willing, strive
for it or fail of it, but he cannot posit any other good than the true
one. There is no other highest good than God. The will is good when it
hearkens to the reason; but the reason is truthful only when it
hearkens to God and accepts illumination from him. Hence every action
is evil which deviates from reason, and is evil also when this reason
is in error (II, 1, 19); whatever does not spring from the conscience
is sin; but the will that follows an erring reason is also not good,
but evil, in so far as the error was avoidable. Hence only that action
is truly good which follows, not merely reason in general as
fortuitously determined in this or that particular person, but true
reason,--which is conscious of the divine will, and determines itself
thereafter.
The readiness of the soul for well-acting is virtue,--which is
consequently to be conceived of not as mere action, but as a permanent
power and tendency for acting, as a habitus, as a power of the rational
will. The virtues are primarily of a natural character; that is, such
as belong to man as such, to his natural rational being, and are
developed by exercise and habituation, although they cannot in
themselves attain to perfection (ii, 1, qu. 55-59, 63). They are
distinguished as knowledge-virtues and moral virtues (comp. S:S: 17,
18); the former are wisdom, science, understanding and, connected
therewith, prudence, and, in a somewhat peculiar sense, also art-skill.
The moral virtues relate to desire; they fall into four cardinal
virtues (ii, 1, qu. 60, 61; ii, 2, 47 sqq). (1) Virtue considered as a
good of the reason, and as expressing the essence of the same, is
prudence; this virtue is, as distinguished from wisdom, not the lord,
but the servant of morality,--gives not the end proper, but only the
means to the end of the practical reason. (2) The virtue which
expresses the practical will-direction of the reason toward moral
actions, is justness or righteousness; it relates to the realizing of
the right,--is the constant and fixed will to give to each his right,
and hence has to do with what we owe to others. It is true, man can in
a certain sense be just also toward himself, namely, when reason holds
in proper control the passions. Justness is the highest of the moral
virtues, and includes in itself also piety, thankfulness, etc. (3) The
virtue which expresses the practical will-direction of the reason
toward the checking of all reason-resisting desires and passions, is
temperateness. It holds within rational bounds all desires and
pleasure-feelings which relate to sensuous goods, and all
displeasure-feelings which spring from the lack of such goods.
Modifications of this virtue are shame, reverentiality, abstinence,
gentleness, modesty, humility, etc. (4) The virtue which expresses the
practical will-direction of the reason toward the carrying-out of
rational purposes as against opposing natural inclinations and
affections, especially against fear in the face of dangers,--is
courage. It wards off whatever would hinder the activity of the reason,
and thus preserves man, as against all sensuous and irrational
impulses, within the limits of rationality; it is, on the one hand,
defensive, a firm calm enduring of hostile influences, and, on the
other, offensive, in that it actually assaults the dangers; the first
phase, however, is, for Christian morality, the predominant. The
highest stage of Christian courage is martyrdom, wherein the main
element is love. The several chief virtues are subdivided by Thomas
Aquinas in a very far-reaching and excessively detailed manner, into
very numerous special manifestation-forms.
Above all the moral virtues, stand (not as co-ordinate therewith, but
as in fact exalting them into a Christian character) the theological
virtues, that is, the supernatural ones--those which have for their
object the divine, the supernatural, and are not grounded in us by
nature, but given (infusae) to us by God (ii, 1, 62 sqq.; ii, 2, 1-46);
through these alone is perfection possible to man, even in the other or
moral virtues.(1) Faith; this virtue relates not to the finite, but to
God, and has as its presupposition, divine revelation. It is a thinking
with an inner assent of the will, and must manifest itself also
outwardly in confession. The object of faith is, in part, purely
supernatural, transcending our knowledge and reason, and in part it can
be discovered even through natural reason; but also that which is
discoverable through reason has in fact been revealed by God out of
love, and for purposes of culture. Faith is raised to a vital form only
by the increment of love (fides formata); without love it is crude
(informis). As faith is the foundation of all morality, so is unbelief
the greatest sin; but as faith is a virtue, hence it is not allowable
to bring a non-Christian to faith by force. The matter is, however,
very different with heretics and apostates, for these have broken their
vow, and hence fall under punishment; heresy deserves capital
punishment (ii, 2, 10, art. 8, 9); and when a prince falls from faith
and in consequence thereof, incurs the: ban of the Church, then are his
subjects ipso facto free and absolved from his dominions and from their
oath of fealty (ii, 2, 12, art. 2),--(2) Hope has for its object
eternal blessedness, that is, the subjective phase of the highest good;
it pre-supposes faith inasmuch as it is only by faith that eternal
blessedness becomes known to us. With hope must be associated
God-fearing, inasmuch as God is the executor of just punishments.--(3)
Love is the most perfect of the virtues, and its presupposition is
faith and hope. It is an intimate union of man with God, a possessing
of God, and the shaping-form of all the other virtues, inasmuch as man
is to do all good out of love to God; it endures forever, whereas faith
ultimately passes over into sight, and hope into the possession of
blessedness. This love, which is primarily love to God, and as such is
not in us by nature, but is a divine grace-gift, enlarges itself
spontaneously into love to men and to all creatures, as also into a
love of man for himself and for his own body as created by God. But all
love to the created must spring exclusively from our love to God, and
it cannot relate approvingly to the evil that is in creatures, but
rather seeks to eradicate it. Our enemies and bad men in general we are
to love, not as bad, but as men, and for the sake of their rational
nature. The degree of our love to creatures is to be in proportion to
the union of the same with God. God himself is to be loved above all
things, above even ourselves.
This double classification of the virtues is doubtless the weakest side
of the ethics of Thomas Aquinas and of the schoolmen in general. The
theological and the natural virtues do not possibly admit of being
brought into any clear relation to each other; they are based upon two
utterly foreign and heterogeneous stand-points, and can be reduced
neither to a condition of co-ordination nor of- subordination, but on
the contrary, they constantly cross and cramp each other, and lead, on
the one hand, to many repetitions, and, on the other, to an arbitrary
distribution of the special virtue-manifestations. That love, even love
to the creature, should appear solely as a theological virtue, is
entirely unnatural. The separating of faith from wisdom is no less
erroneous, inasmuch as Christian wisdom rests essentially on faith in
God. The distinction made between knowledge-virtues and moral virtues
suffers not only under all the defects of its prototype in Aristotle,
but becomes more perplexed still by the distinguishing of both these
classes from the theological virtues, inasmuch as a very essential part
of that which Aristotle ascribes to wisdom must here be transferred to
faith. And the matter is made still worse by the fact that the moral
virtues are not presented strictly according to Aristotle, but
according to the four chief virtues of Plato, who does not find any
place for special knowledge-virtues, so that while, now, wisdom does
not, yet prudence does, appear as a moral cardinal virtue, whereas in
fact prudence belongs unquestionably along with wisdom to the
knowledge-virtues, as is the case in Aristotle (S: 17). The fact is,
the entire Greek schema is totally inadequate for the expression of the
Christian virtues, and the violence of the process is felt at e-very
step of the attempt. Even the utterly untenable position of Aristotle,
that virtue always lies in the middle between two opposite aberrations
(S: 17), is adopted by Thomas Aquinas, and applied even to the
knowledge-virtues; to the theological-virtues he applies it only in
this respect, that, in them, we are to reach a definite measure
corresponding to our nature (ii, 1, 64),--to say the least, a strange
application of the middle-way of Aristotle.
On the virtues in general, Thomas Aquinas makes also the following
observations, mostly in the spirit of Aristotle: every virtue is
heightened in its power by exercise; all of them stand in connection
with each other, and when they appear in their perfection, no one of
them is without all the others. The virtues, according as they are
viewed under different aspects, are, as to worth, in part equal and in
part unequal; the knowledge-virtues are per se nobler than the moral
virtues, inasmuch as reason is nobler than desire; but in respect to
their activity, the moral virtues stand higher, as they are more
fruitful in results. The perfect practice of virtue depends on the
directly God-conferred seven gifts of the Spirit (ii, 1, 68), which
make the person willing to follow the promptings of the Holy Spirit,--a
thought which occurs already in Ambrose and in Gregory I., but in
respect to which, even the intellectual acumen of a Thomas Aquinas does
not succeed in making clear the relation of these gifts to the
corresponding virtues; especially the theological.
The moral activity determines itself according to a law; this law
belongs to the sphere of reason. The eternal law is the universe-ruling
divine reason, not the fortuitous reason of the individual. The laws of
nature, and also those of the practical reason (ratio practica) are an
efflux from the eternal law, and the human laws of the state and of
society are in turn an efflux from both. The laws which lie merely in
the natural reason do not suffice for morality; but there is needed, in
order to the supernatural end of blessedness, also a positive divine
law, which is made known and evidenced to all by revelation, and which
at the same time also preserves the natural consciousness from all
doubt (ii, 1, 90 sqq).--In the field of Christian morality the law
proper, which is absolutely binding on all Christians, is to be
distinguished from the counsels, which are left to free choice, though
the following of them works a higher perfection and leads more speedily
to the goal of salvation. The Old Testament law, as a law of servitude,
had no such counsels; but the Gospel as a law of freedom has them, in
order to bring men rightly to a consciousness of their freedom. The.
clinging to the earthly hinders our arriving at the heavenly; hence the
counsels hasten this arriving, in that they free man as far as possible
from earthly enjoyments which are otherwise not forbidden to him; they
therefore require poverty, perpetual chastity (that is, non-marriage),
and the yoke of obedience (obedientiae servitus), the latter very
erroneously based on Matt. xix, 21 ("follow me,") and on John x, 27
(ii, 1, 108, art. 4; comp. ii, 2, 186).--The Christian law as
distinguished from the natural law cannot be fulfilled by our own
natural power, but only in virtue of the grace-gifts infused into the
hearts of believers; and in so far man acquires for himself, by his
virtue, no merit before God. Without grace no one can acquire the life
of blessedness; on the presupposition of grace, however, man can in
fact acquire a merit before God, and thereby an increase of grace and
of the love of God, and hence also a heightening of his blessedness
(meritum condigni) (ii, 1, 114).
Opposed to the morally-good stands evil; to the virtuous act, sin; and
to virtue as a habit, vice (ii, 1, 71 sqq.); sin and vice are in
contradiction to true reason, and hence in general to the essence or
nature of man. In reference to the kind of pleasure felt or sought in
sin, sins are divided into spiritual and fleshly sins. In reference to
their guilt and punishableness, they are classed into venial and mortal
(peccata venalia et mortalia); the former consist in the turning to the
finite without a conscious and designed turning-away from God, and they
involve finite punishments, either here upon earth or in purgatory;
mortal sins consist in a conscious and designed turning-away from, and
hence in a conscious rebelling against, God and his will,--are contrary
to the order of love, and hence involve eternal punishment. The gravity
of the guilt is measured by the importance of the object, by the
motives, by the degree of consciousness and of freedom, and by the
spiritual character and position of the subject in society. In
reference to the positive or negative contents of the action, sins fall
into sins of commission and of omission (peccata commissionis et
omissionis). In reference to their manner of commission, sins are sins
of the heart, of the mouth, and of act (peccata cordis, oris, operis).
In sin there is to be distinguished a twofold consent of the rational
will, namely, to the pleasure in the sin, and to the sinful deed
itself, the latter being the more criminal.--The causes of sin, as act,
are in part direct, namely, erring cognition and volition-the regarding
a seeming good as a real one, and the willing it, and, in part,
indirect, namely, first, inner ones, such as imagination, sensuousness,
ignorance, passion, and other already committed sins; and, second,
outward or tempting ones, such as evil spirits and bad men; temptation,
however, presupposes, in order to its effectualness, a sinful welcoming
of it. God is not the cause of sin, though indeed, in virtue of his
righteousness, He is the mediate cause of the consequences of sin, e.
g., of the hardening of the heart. The sinful corruption which
transmits itself from the first man to all following generations, that
is, original sin, is, formally, the being destitute of original
righteousness, and, materially, the tending of the soul-powers to false
goods,--concupiscentia (75 sqq). The particular sins are severally
treated of in connection with the virtues of which they are the
violation.
In his, not seldom very casuistical carrying out of details, Thomas
Aquinas, notwithstanding his moral earnestness, does not, on the whole,
incline to theoretical rigor, but leaves pretty free scope for personal
determination in particular cases, and even in the face of outward
human law. The right of property, for example, is, in his opinion, not
unconditional; and in extreme cases of necessity, where the saving of
life is involved, the right of self-preservation takes precedence of
the right of property, and a person sins not when, in such a case, he
openly or secretly takes from the refused superfluity of another that
which he needs (ii, 2, sq. 66, 7).--To take interest for money loaned,
he regards, in agreement with general ancient-Christian and Mediaeval
opinion, as unallowable; otherwise the same thing would be paid for
twice; he who sells a loaf of bread, may not demand another special
payment for the eating of the same; he who lends receives, in fact, the
purchase price with the return of the simple sum lent; however, it is
not unallowable, in case of need, to pay interest to others for
money.--The duty of truthfulness admits, indeed, of saying less than
one knows to be the truth, but not more; for the little is a part of
the whole. All lies are sins, though in different degrees; a conscious
lie for the injury of another is a mortal sin, but a lie said in sport
or a lie of courtesy (mendacium officiosum) in indifferent things, and
where it injures no one, is a venial one (ii, 2, sq. 110, 4).
Duns Scotus (ob. 1308), whose really speculative acumen went but too
often astray into sophistical and skeptical reasonings, involved the
moral idea, and above all its special application, in more than one
respect, in uncertainty, namely, by his sophist-delight in the
discovering and in the ingenious solving of contradictions and
difficulties. A minutely spun-out quatenus makes room for the most
opposite assumptions, and opens the way, to subjective discretion, for
a lax construing of the law. Many elements in Scotus remind us
strikingly of the later aberrations of the Jesuitical view. The notion
of the freedom of the will he conceives, in opposition to Thomas
Aquinas, as essentially a mere norm-less discretion, both in man and in
God; while Aquinas held that man, as really rational, has, in his
rational knowledge of the good, a motive--not a compelling one, it is
true, but a motive--to the good, so that he cannot determine himself
equally easily for the rational and the irrational, but has in fact a
primitive, a constitutional inclination to the good, and that
consequently the will does not by any means stand entirely neutral (ii,
1, 9, 13, 17, 58), Duns Scotus maintains, on the contrary, that
according to this view the will is not at all free, but is determined
by knowledge; according to his view, the will, as free, is not ini the
least bound by rational knowledge, but stands perfectly neutral, and
can with like facility decide for, or against, the known good. [121]
Likewise, also, is the freedom of the divine will in nowise to be
conceived of as characterized by any inner necessity, so that, for
example, God could not equally well will the opposite of that which he
actually does will. A course of order is not willed by God and
established as a law because it is good per se, but it is good simply
and solely because God has willed it precisely so; but He might just as
readily have willed the opposite thereof. Hence also God is not bound
by his commands, and He can in fact annul them,--not merely the
positive laws of Revelation, but also the natural laws of morals; only
from the two first laws of the Decalogue, as resulting directly from
the essence of God, can God not dispense. [122] It is evidently in the
interest of this lax notion of liberty that Duns Scotus admits also of
morally indifferent actions--not merely such manners of action, as,
being neither commended nor forbidden, constitute the sphere of the
allowed,--but also real, positive actions which are neither good nor
evil, that is, which are not done out of love to God, but also not in
opposition to Him. [123] Hence in regard to particular moral cases;
Duns Scotus shows himself often very lax. Falsehood and
misrepresentation he declares as, under certain circumstances,
allowable. [124] An oath of promise obligates to its fulfillment only
when the person had at the time of swearing it the intention of
fulfilling it,--though of course an oath in which one did not have this
intention, is a moral sin. [125]
Scholastic ethics as a whole bears a pretty unvarying outward form. The
method is, as the several points present themselves, first, to state
the various opposing views with the reasons in their favor, and then to
pass a decision upon the point itself; mere dicta of the Fathers,
especially of Augustine and of Dionysius the Areopagite, and often also
of the Philosophus, that is, Aristotle, suffice in and of themselves as
conclusive proofs; texts from the Scriptures fall rather into the
back-ground.--Despite the undeniable acumen shown by the schoolmen in
the development of processes of reasoning, there is yet manifest also a
lack of the courage to derive their philosophical systems purely and
simply from the Christian consciousness. Graeco-Roman ethics was in
fact, to the schoolmen, not a merely preliminary and preparatory study,
but it was with them of quite too determining an influence, also in
respect to the subject-matter of their science. They endeavor, indeed,
with great earnestness to exalt extra-Christian philosophy into the
sphere of Christian thought; it proves, however, an element too mighty
for them, and they do not wholly escape entangling the Christian
consciousness in the heathen, and thus robbing it of its peculiarity.
They felt indeed the antagonism, but did not overcome it, and the
prevalent lifeless juxtaposing of the two elements shows only their
embarrassment, but not their ability to dominate the foreign
material.--The almost universal resorting to certain favorite numbers
in the division and classification of the subject-matter, particularly
to three and seven, and also to four and twelve, is indeed based on an
obscure consciousness of an inner order of the spiritual life; but this
order does not come to a scientific consciousness, and the real reason
for its observance is, after all, the typical significance of these
numbers as sacred. That there should be presented precisely seven
beatitudes, seven (diversely-stated) mortal sins, etc., seems without
inner ground; and frequently this using of numbers sinks to jejune
play, as, e. g., when a certain writer introduces every-where the
number twelve,--in the dividing of his subject, in assigning reasons,
in citing objections, etc.
The ethical subject-matter treated of by the schoolmen was subsequently
wrought over in large, though but little systemetized summaries in
connection with appropriate citations from the Fathers, and placed
within reach of the wider circles of the ecclesiastical world. To the
period of Thomas Aquinas himself belongs the Summa of William Peraldus,
[126] an essentially casuistical and pretty well digested appreciation
of scholastic science; after which we may mention the Speculum morale,
attributed to Vincent of Beauvais (ob. 1264), but originating in the
fourteenth century; [127] and also the much used and very complete and
erudite Summa of Antony of Florence (ob. 1450). [128]
John of Salisbury (ob. 1180, as Bishop of Chartres), who opposed
scholasticism proper with brilliant ability, but was rather empirical
in regard to the source of knowledge, though in other respects of rich
philosophical culture, undertook to give to the moral views of the
Church a scientific expression; in his efforts he based himself most
largely on Gregory the Great. To be perfect is God's essence, to become
perfect is the task of man as God's image; man becomes perfect, and
hence happy only by moral activity,--which activity rests, on the one
hand, on the knowledge of the truth, and, on the other, on love to God.
Since the fall into sin man can know the truth only in virtue of divine
revelation and illumination, and he can realize the good only by the
assistance of divine grace. Because of the evil desire inborn in all
men, there is no virtue without a constant struggle of our love to
righteousness, as strengthened by redemption, against our innate evil
desires. Even as the essence and source of all sins is the natural
desire as developed into pride and presumption (so that consequently
all virtuous effort directs itself primarily against the pride of the
heart), so the essence of all Christian virtue is that humility which
springs from love to God, and which seeks to lay aside all self-will
and to give God the glory in all things. Hence the moral worth of
actions lies not in the work, but in the disposition; but from the
right disposition there follows with moral necessity also the right
work.--Morality is not, however, a merely individual task, it finds its
full truth only in the moral community-life, which comes to expression
in the church and in the closely therewith-connected Christian state.
The State has, as a real moral organism, also a moral task, namely, to
execute righteousness according to the divine will, and not only to
protect the morality of the people, but also to foster and guide it.
Hence the law which governs the state is to be an expression, not of
human discretion, but only of the divine will, to which even the prince
must absolutely subordinate himself; hence it must rest on God's
revealed Word, and the vicegerents of God, that is, the representatives
of the religious community-life--the Church,--must be also the
animating soul of the Christian state; for, in fact, in its moral task,
the Christian state is identical with the church. God-fearing is the
life-power of the Christian state, and this state must therefore above
all things recognize and honor both the moral right of the church and
also the priests as the higher and, so to speak, divine element in
worldly society. The priests indeed should not and may not themselves
guide and administer the state; they are rather simply by their moral
example, by doctrine, by exhortation, and by reproof, to influence the
same, but the princes to whom by divine ordinance the guidance of the
state belongs, have received the sword only from the higher moral
community, the church, in order to execute justice in the name of the
Christian idea; and so likewise stands the military order, knighthood,
not merely in the service of the prince, but quite as fully, and in
fact primarily, in the service of God, and hence of the church. A
prince who breaks away from divine law, who rebels against the divine
ordinances, and hence also against the church, has, as a tyrant,
forfeited his moral right to the crown, and it is not merely legitimate
to offer resistance to him, but also in any manner whatever, even by
treachery or assassination, to get rid of him [Policraticus iv, 2]. The
political doctrine of John of Salisbury is a Mediaeval Christian
counterpart to Plato's doctrine of the state, with which he was not
acquainted, and is in fact an attempt to introduce Augustine's Civitas
Dei into the worldly state. [129]
The fondness of Schoolmen for proposing difficult controversial
questions led them inevitably into the province of casuistry; and this
science--which had sustained itself alongside of
scholasticism--subsequently borrowed from scholastic science much
congenial material, and in part also a scientific form. Hence at the
decline of scholasticism in the fourteenth century, casuistry entered
in fact upon its brightest days. The works entitled Summae casuum
conscientiae, were very much used in connection with confession and
penance, and, as they generally contained also much matter relative to
church law, also in ecclesiastical administration. In them we find a
very imperfectly digested, and often merely alphabetical, summary of
specific single moral questions, which relate in the main to what is
allowed or disallowed, and the decision of which is given less from
general principles than on the basis of the utterances of the more
highly esteemed Fathers. The questions are often not taken from life at
all, but are siniply invented in order to exercise ingenuity, as in
riddle-solving; and in some of these works there is manifested a
peculiarly fond lingering over extremely impure subjects. In the
presence of the too exclusively considered individual case, the general
principles involved in it are often wholly lost sight of, and ethics is
in danger of degenerating into a sophistry of special-pleading,--into a
treating of the moral merely empirically and skeptically; thus we find
questions often extensively discussed, as doubtful, which cannot be in
the least practically doubtful for the unsophisticated moral
consciousness. The best known of these works are the Summae of Raymund
of Pennaforti in the thirteenth century, [130] and of Astesanus in the
fourteenth [131] (the Astesana, is cautious and judicious, contains
also many general considerations, and is pretty systematic and
comprehensive); Angelus of Clavasio in the fifteenth century [132] (the
Angelica, perhaps the most extensively used; alphabetical, with much
worthless matter, and often treating of indelicate questions);
Sylvester Prierias, General of the Dominicans, the well-known opponent
of Luther, gave in his Summa moralis, [133] generally called Summa
summarum, an alphabetical compilation from others. (The Pisanella [1470
and often], revised by Nicolas of Ausmo, 1471, '73, '74, '75, '78;
Galensis, 1475; Rosella, 1516; Pacifica, 1574. The Biblia aurea, 1475,
'81,--also in German, alphabetical.)--Also the Decretum of Gratian
contains, in its first part, much that appertains to casuistical
ethics.
__________________________________________________________________
[121] Quaestt. in libr. Sentent. ii, dist. 25, ed. Lugd., 1639, t. 6,
p. 873 sqq.
[122] Ibid. iii, dist. 37, t. 7, p. 857.
[123] Ibid. ii, dist. 41.
[124] Ibid. iii, dist. 38, p. 917.
[125] Ibid. iii, dist. 39, p. 980.
[126] Summa s. tractatius de virtutibus et vitiis, from the fifteenth
century, (without date or place of printing, then at Col. Agr., 1479
fol.; Basle, 1497, 8vo.) often reprinted.
[127] Not in his Opp., 1481, but separately printed as a part of the
great Speculum naturale, etc., 1473, and subsequently.
[128] Summa theol., 1477, 1478, 1480, 1496; 1740, 4 vols.
[129] Especially in his Policraticus.--(Reuter: Joh. v. S., 1842).
Schaarschmidt: Joh. Saresb., 1862.
[130] Summa de casibus poenitentiae, Verona, 1744; upon this is based
the work of John of Freiburg, Augsb., 1472, and frequently.
[131] S. d. cas. consc. (at first without date or place) about 1468-72
fol.; then at Col., 1479; Norimb., 1482, and often later.
[132] S. cas. consc., 1486 without place, fol.; Venet., 1487 4to.;
Norimb., 1488, and often.
[133] Printed in 1515 4to.; Argent., 1518 fol.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXXV.
The writings of the Mystics contain in the field of ethics many
profound thoughts, though without rigidly scientific form. This is the
case with Richard of St. Victor and Bonaventura. Less mystical than
simply practical, and strongly emphasizing the subjective phase of
morality, was the influence of Bernard of Clairvaux, and later, of
Thomas `a Kempis; while Eckart, and in part even Tauler, conceive the
moral in the main negatively and quietistically (in the spirit of a
Pantheistically-infected mysticism) as spiritual poverty,, as the
turning-away of the spirit from all that is created. Occupying a
mediating position between mysticism and scholasticism, also John
Gerson seeks to give form to ethics, but he already begins to show
signs of that paralysis of the moral spirit which had spread into the
widest circles previously to the Reformation; Raymund de Sabunde deals
in more popularly-practical modes of thought. In the spirit of the
Reformation, and as its precursors, worked, in the field of ethics,
also Wickliffe, Huss, John of Goch, and Savonarola.
In contrast to the growingly-Aristotelian, dialectical treatment of
ethics, the mystical anti-scholastic current of theology clings, more
or less closely, to the writings of the supposed Areopagite (S: 31),
but keeps for the most part clear from the daring speculations of John
Scotus Erigena, and gives, in general, thoughtful meditations and
profound glances of insight rather than rigorous and clear processes of
reasoning. The freedom of the will is, by most of the Mediaeval
mystics, pretty strongly emphasized; but the active working in the
outer world is made largely to give place to the purely contemplative
life.
Richard of St. Victor (about 1150) treats, in several special works, of
the inner life of the pious heart in its union with God,--a life which
through contemplatio as distinguished from cogitatio and meditatio,
passes over into self-forgetting love. The divine is not attained to by
laborious thinking and doing, but by an immediate and spiritual, freely
self-devoting vision or beholding, to which receptive state of the soul
God lovingly manifests himself as in-streaming light. And the soul
becomes receptive by the progressive cleansing of it from the dross of
the earthly life, from the striving after the creature,--by
self-immersion into itself, not in order to hold fast to itself in
antithesis to God, but in order to aspire toward him in ardent
love-desire; the goal is perfect, blissful rest in God; the condition
is the operation of grace and the willing, joyous laying-hold upon the
same on the part of the subject.--Bonaventura (ob. 1274) attempts to
fuse dialectics with mysticism, but, notwithstanding his frequently
almost overflowing subjectivity of feeling, his mysticism is less
sustained and less deep than that of Richard St. Victor, and lingers
more in the sphere of practical piety.--Bernard of Clairvaux (ob.
1153),--opposing scholasticism in many respects not without good
grounds, and confining himself mainly to the practical sphere,--has
also carefully examined the subject of ethics in some of its parts; (De
diligendo deo; De gradibus humilitatis et superb.; De gratia et libero
arbitrio; De consideratione.) To true virtue belong two things: divine
grace and a free, active embracing of the same; without freedom there
is no responsibility. But freedom is threefold: first, freedom of
nature as opposed to necessity; second, freedom of grace,--attained to
through Christ,--that is, emancipation from the bondage of sin; and,
third, freedom of glory which is realized in eternal blessedness, but
enjoyed here only in moments of spiritual vision. Freedom of choice is
from nature, but by grace it is regulated and attracted toward the
good, though not forced. By simple free-will we belong to ourselves; by
the willing of the good we belong to God; by the willing of evil, to
Satan. The decision lies in our own hand; no one is forced to
salvation. Love, as constituting the essence of the moral, has four
degrees: first, man loves himself for his own sake; second, he loves
God, not, however, for God's but for, his own sake, because without God
he can do nothing; third, he loves God for God's sake, out of
thankfulness for experienced love; fourth, he loves also himself solely
for God's sake; this highest stage, that of true morality, is, however,
but seldom enjoyed in this life. The essence of wisdom, on the whole,
is, to behold and to love the invisible essence of God in all things,
to give up all that we have to God, and to live only in God and for
God. All true virtue is an expression of humility, whereby, in true
self-knowledge man becomes nothing in his own eyes; humility leads in
twelve stages to the truth, which truth in turn develops itself in
three stages, the highest of which is the direct spiritual beholding of
God. Humility, love, and the beholding of the truth, are the three
aliments of the soul, corresponding to the Son, the Spirit, and the
Father. The mystical element in Bernard shows itself mainly in the
development of the doctrine of contemplation. Many of his principles he
borrows from the ethics prevalent in his day, as, e. g., the four
cardinal virtues, and also the notion of the middle-way as the essence
of virtue.
Master Eckart (a Dominican at Cologne, ob. 1329), [134] distinguished
for profound insight, but not unfrequently overpassing, in his fervid
soarings, the limits of the Christian world-theory, was of very great
influence on subsequent mystics; taking his departure from Dionysius
the Areopagite, he pushes the thought of the union of the soul with
God, as the highest good to such a height as almost to lose sight of
the individual existence of the creature, and of its distinctness from
God,-- not, however, in the sense of modern Pantheism, but in that of
John Scotus Erigena; The world is, strictly speaking, nothing at
all,--is rather mere appearance than reality; God alone is real in
whatever exists; God alone is the object of true love, and in this love
all morality is comprehended. Hence the entire striving of man must be
directed to this end, namely, to becoming at one with God, to laying
aside his separate existence, to turning away from all that is created,
to wishing nothing, loving nothing, knowing nothing but God alone--to
merging himself into God, to transforming himself into God. If God is
to come into the soul, then the creature must be driven out; if man is
to become rich in God, then he must become poor in the creature. When
man turns himself away from all that is finite, when he forgets himself
and the world, and directs his soul exclusively toward God, then God
pours himself into his soul,--God is born in the soul, and the soul has
eternal rest in God. Virtuous working in the world is not the highest
working, for in it man disperses himself into the multiplicity of the
finite; he who has found God, who has God dwelling in himself, divests
himself also of works,--seeks only the inner work, reposes in God
alone; nay, he aims not at his own blessedness, for in fact this is
also a clinging to self, to the created,--he aims only at giving
himself wholly up to God, at sacrificing himself to God, at reducing
himself to nothing, at cutting off and throwing away from himself
whatever is finite or creature-like, or different from God; he breaks
himself loose not only from sin, but also from the world and from his
own self. Not man is to work, but he is to let God exclusively and
alone work in him; such purity of heart, such freedom from all self,
also from all personal volition, is the highest good, is the spiritual
birth of God in the soul; we possess all good when we are united with
God's nature, and a single glance at God "in his nakedness" is of more
avail, and unites the soul more with God, than all the works of
Christendom could accomplish.
In a similar spirit, although less bold in emphasizing the mystical
element, wrote and lived Tauler, Eckart's disciple (a Dominican at
Cologne and Strasburg, ob. 1361). He presented, in his "Imitation of
the humble Life of Christ," [135] a system of pure mysticism, and
which, for that very reason, was one-sided and dangerous to the
Christian consciousness. The essence of morality is spiritual poverty;
the way to life, to "equality with God," is to become spiritually poor,
to be separated from all that belongs to the creature, to cling to
nothing among finite things; as, however, all that is finite must cling
to something, hence man is to cling only to that which is above
himself, to God. The poorer man is in the creature, so much the richer
is he in God; God is intuited only immediately, without ally
intervention of the creature; in so far as man looks to the creature he
is distant from God. Man must put off from himself all that is
multiple, manifold, in order to become rich in the One,--must be poor
in knowledge in so far as knowledge relates to the finite and is
involved in finite forms,--poor in virtue in so far as it is an acting
in the finite (only the disposition is divine),--poor even in grace in
so far as the soul in its union with God stands no longer in a mere
relation of grace to God, but is actively led by God in harmony with
himself in a divine manner. The sole true knowledge is the direct
spiritual beholding of God. The sole virtue is simple love to God. God
is free from every thing that is creatural; in spiritual poverty man
becomes also free from and divested of all things,--presses, as a free
soul, into the uncreated good, into God, and is no longer affected by
earthly pleasure or by pain. Hence true divine freedom springs from
poverty and humility; false freedom, from pride. God is a pure
activity--a mere working; therefore also poverty is a pure working with
God; now there are three kinds of work: (1) natural work, in part
bodily and sensuous; this work must take place with moderation and in
the Holy Ghost, and the senses must be indulged in their necessary
wants; and in part, spiritual, as knowledge and love; also this work
must take place only in so far as necessary, must be turned aside from
all not absolutely essential things; otherwise it leads to pride. (2)
Grace-work; in man, this work is primarily learning, namely, acquiring
a knowledge of the Scriptures and of all the efficacy of the Holy
Spirit, and hence also a knowledge of good and evil. When man permits
himself to be guided by the divine Spirit that dwells within him, then
he becomes a friend of God; as such, he must divest himself of all
temporal things, and renounce them, for they are all null and void; he
must simply follow Christ, and in so doing he attains (3) to the divine
work in man; man is now one spirit with God, and seeks nothing but God;
his work is God's work, and God's work is his own work; and God's
spirit speaks to him no more in symbol and form, but in full life,
light, and truth. All the powers of the soul keep holiday, arid are at
rest, and let God alone work, and this is the highest work of which
they are capable. The human spirit loses finally its own self, loses
itself in God and knows no longer any thing but God; God puts himself
in the place of reason in man, and works man's works; the soul merges
itself into God and remains eternally hovering in God,--drowns itself
in the unfathomable sea of divinity. Hence by the renouncing of all
that is temporal, by true poverty, man becomes divested also of outward
works. He who has no longer any thing wherewith to help his fellow-man,
is in fact no longer required to do so; also external works belong to
the sphere of the temporal, and hence man must pass through them and
beyond them up to true poverty and vision; in this one work he works
all works, and in this one virtue he has all virtues.--In Tauler the
one phase of the moral, namely, union with God, is pushed one-sidedly
into untruth, so that the right of the creatural individuality is
relatively lost sight of, and hence we find in many respects
Pantheistical forms of thought.--John Ruisbroch of Brussels (ob. 1381)
wrote in a similar spirit, but strayed into a still more transcendental
heart-mysticism, though his, works abound rather in allegorizing
portrayals and confident assertions than in scientific demonstration.
The comprehensiveness of a Gerson (ob. 1429) could not bring to a check
the decline of the inner spirit of the church, which was now seriously
affecting also the general moral consciousness. Scholasticism and
casuistry had, by their interminable subtleties;. largely obscured the
more simple moral modes of thought-;: and while puzzling themselves in
fruitless speculation over the imaginary difficulties of
cunningly-invented cases of conscience, they lost all sense for moral
straightforwardness; and found abundant pretexts for making exceptions
from the moral rule. The Franciscan, Jean Petit of Paris, was able, on
occasion of the murder of the regent, the Duke of Orleans, in 1407, to
find reasons for openly justifying the murder of tyrants, and the
Council of Constance did not venture to pronounce a decided disapproval
of this doctrine; and not only that, but it gave, for the first time,
serious countenance to the notion of moral probabilism, that is, the
doctrine that a morally doubtful action is permissible on condition
that several esteemed Fathers can be cited in its favor. [136] Gerson,
who opposed the doctrine of Petit with but half-heart, was also himself
involved in the general laxity of the moral consciousness; he also
countenanced probabilism. He held that the vow of celibacy was violated
only by actual marriage but not by fornication, and for this sin he
shows an excessive leniency. [137] The notorious morality of the
Jesuits is not peculiar to them, but is only the further development of
a spirit that was already powerful in the Romish church before the time
of the Reformation. In other respects Gerson seeks, in his numerous
writings on specific moral topics, to mitigate the erroneousness of the
prevailing moral views; the monastic life and the doctrine of the
divine counsels, he does not esteem so highly as did the spirit of his
age; he finds the difference between venial and mortal sins rather in
the subjective intention than in the objective nature of the sin. The
mystical element appears in Gerson under a very moderated form.
Thomas `a Kempis (ob. 1471), the author of the most widely known of all
books of devotion: De imitatione Christi (translated into all European
languages, and published nearly two thousand times), shows himself in
this book as a thoroughly practical, moderated mystic, of deep moral
life-experience, and of genuine, heart-felt, morally-vigorous piety;
and hence his work is not less prized in the Protestant than in the
Romish church. The thoughts are presented in a clear, genuinely-popular
style, and the rich heart-depth is thereby thrown all the more brightly
into relief.--The book known as German Theology, published first by
Luther in 1516, but springing from an unknown author of the fifteenth
century, is based on Tauler, and is characterized by a somewhat more
strongly speculative mysticism than that of Kempis,--emphasizing in an
almost one-sided manner the turning-away from self and from the world,
and the becoming united with God as the one eternal good, so that the
moral right of the personality is thrown quite too far into the
back-ground, and too little distinction is made between the personality
itself and the "selfhood" that is to be done away with.
Less peculiar in contents than in form, and differing equally from
scholasticism and from mysticism, are the moral views of Raymund de
Sabunde (of Toulouse, about 1430). [138] Appropriating to himself the
results of preceding theological and philosophical thought, he
undertook, rather from the stand-point of experience, of the
observation of nature, and of the common sense of mankind, to place
these results within reach of the understanding of the masses. The
freedom of the will as directed toward the good is the highest
possession of reason; called to the highest place in the scale of
created beings, man should, by free conduct, show himself worthy of
this calling,--should establish and preserve the harmony of the
created. As man has received nothing from himself, but every thing from
God alone, hence his first duty is thankful love to God who first loved
him (tit. 96 sqq., 109 sqq.); love to self becomes moral only through
love to God. Other creatures give us good only in so far as God works
through them, and hence our love to them must be subordinated to our
love to God; but out of this love to God follows also a love to that
which He has created, and hence, first of all, to man as God's image;
hence the requirement to love one's neighbor as one's self (120 sqq).
Through love to God, man constantly grows in God-likeness, for amor
convertit amantem in rem amatam (129 sqq.), though this is not to be
taken in the sweeping sense of the Mystics. Evil consists in this, that
we honor and love the creature not in God but for itself, and is
consequently idolatry; the root of all evil is this impious love to
self, that is, it is self-seeking and self-will; the devil seeks
nothing but himself.--As in consequence of sin a general corruption of
man's nature has been brought about, and as the power of sin over man
is paralyzed only by redemption, hence Christian morality rests
entirely on loving thankfulness to Christ, and involves a constant
struggle against the remains of sin that still infect us.
The evangelical tendency which during the time of the universal
domination of the Romish church had never entirely disappeared, and
which, especially since the appearance of the Waldenses, had been
growing more positive in its opposition to the corrupted church,
directed its efforts from the very first against the anti-scriptural
and arbitrary ordinances of said church, especially against the
work-holiness of monastic morality, in order to vindicate the moral
freedom of the Christian personality, and also against the sophistical
laxity of the more recent period; this tendency insists above all upon
faith-born love as the source and essence of all true morality, and
rejects the notion of supererogatory merit as arising from the
observance of the so-called evangelical counsels.--So taught Wickliffe
in his Trialogus, but rather as assailing than as positively building
up; all sin, he refers to a lack in true faith; a correct knowledge of
faith precludes sin; true virtue is not possible without true faith; a
correct knowledge of faith precludes sin; true virtue is not possible
without true faith; hence by a man's virtue one can judge of his faith.
Wickliffe's over-rigid and almost deterministic predestinarianism
simply stands, unmediated, along-side of his moral views, and merely
impedes their freer scope.--Also Huss combats, in the ethical field,
chiefly only against the errors of Romish dogmas and morals, without
himself establishing any thing essentially new.--Violent and keen, and
generally, though not always, purely evangelical are also the assaults
of Nicolas de Clamengis [Clemangis] in France--ob. about 1440--against
the corruption of the moral consciousness of the church). [139] --John
of Goch, of Malines (ob. 1475) assailed, from an Augustinian
stand-point, the commingling of the evangelical with the Mosaic law,
also the system of vows, and outward work-holiness in general; faith as
working by love is the essence of Christian freedom and morality. [140]
The influence of Savonarola in Florence lay more in his fiery zeal for
pure evangelical morality than in fruits of scientific thought; in his
mode of thinking, the phase of the God-possessecl affections stands
forth with most prominence; a mystical subjectiveness is combined with
a fervent work-activity. [141]
If we leave out of view these teachers of the church who were
forerunners of the Reformation, we find in general in the
ecclesiastical ethics prevailing before the opening of this Reformation
a threefold character: a casuistical, a scholastic, and a mystical one,
corresponding to the three phases of the soul-life, namely, to the
empirical understanding, to the speculative reason and to the loving
heart. The mystical form of ethics is the pure antithesis to the
casuistical; the former rests on heart-union with God, the latter on
the analyzing understanding; the former, upon an inward ineffable
vision, the latter, upon outward calculating observation; the former
strays at times int6 the borders of Pantheism, and hence has some
points of contact with the cosmic theory of India; the. latter is
rather in danger of repeating, in the Christian sphere, the Jewish
externality and chicanery of Pharisaism and Talmudism;--the former
reduces all plurality, all heterogeneousness, to a homogeneous
unity,--endangers the practically moral working-life in the world; the
latter dissolves the moral idea into an atomistic plurality of single
cases devoid of uniting bond;--mysticism turns itself away disdainfully
from all objective reality even of the moral life; casuistry threatens
to bind up and to smother the moral in narrow legal forms; mysticism
turns away from the circumference toward the center, but does not
return again from the center to the circumference; casuistry proceeds
and stumbles by a reverse course;-the former tends to a
lightly-esteeming of the active life, the latter to a hypocritical and
external work-holiness. Speculative ethics, especially in Thomas
Aquinas, stands higher than in either of the other two forms, but lacks
too much in evangelical directness and simplicity; and because of its
double dependence on Greek ethics, on the one hand, and on the
evangelical church-creed, on the other, it has not only compromised its
legitimate and essential freedom, but, at the same time, also its
truth. Notwithstanding this, however, it stands (especially in its
highest perfection in Thomas Aquinas) far more closely to the
evangelical consciousness than the later form of Roman Catholic ethics
as presented by the zealous champion of the Romish church, the Jesuits.
__________________________________________________________________
[134] Schriften, edited by Pfeiffer, 1847,--(mostly sermons; larger
scientific works of his appear to be lost. C. Schmidt in Stud. u.
Krit., 1839; Martensen, 1842; J. Back, 1864.
[135] Edited by Schlosser, 1833 (in modern German); his sermons are
mostly practico-edificatory. The work, Medulla animae, is not by Tauler
C. Schmidt: J. Tauler, 1841.
[136] Marheinecke: Gesch. d. christl Moral, etc., 1806, p. 161 sqq.;
Staeudlin: Gesch. d. ch. Mor. seit. d. Wiederaufl., etc., p. 63 sqq.;
Wessenberg: Kirschenversamml., 2, 247.
[137] Opp., Antv., 1706, t. iii, 917 sqq.
[138] Theologia naturalis, Solisb., 1852.--Matzke: R. v. S., 1816.
[139] De corrupto eccl. statu, and in briefer essays and letters, Opp.,
1613.
[140] Ullmann: Reformatoren vor d. Ref., 1841, i.
[141] Rudelbach: Sav., 1835; F. C. Meier, 1836.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
III. THE EPOCH OF REFORM.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXXVI.
The antagonism of the evangelical ground-thought to that of Romanism
manifested itself also in ethics. In the evangelical or Protestant
church the sinful corruption of the natural man was conceived much more
deeply, and consequently the moral task of the Christian much more
earnestly; and, as a consequence of the impossibility of meriting
salvation by our works, Christian virtue was conceived, in much greater
freedom from self-seeking, as the-simple fruit of faith; and the notion
of supererogatory works became impossible in view of the decided
recognition, that the life even of the most holy always falls short of
moral perfection. The Scriptural view excludes a very essential portion
of Romish ethics from that of the evangelical church. [142]
The semi-Pelagian enfeebling of the effects of sin that prevailed in
the Romish church, deprived ethics of its proper deep-reaching
foundation. The more deeply the moral corruption of man is conceived
of, so much the greater becomes also the significancy of redemption,
and likewise also of the moral struggle of the regenerated Christian
against sin. Hence the, at first thought, surprising phenomenon that
the rigid predestinarianism of Calvin did not lead to a decline in
moral effort, but on the contrary to a very vigorous moral life. In the
deep earnestness of their conception of the moral task, both
evangelical churches, the Lutheran and the Reformed, stand alike.
The Holy Scriptures are the sole fountain of Christian ethics, just as,
living faith in Christ as the sole cause of salvation, is also the
subjective ground and the living fountain of morality. All blessedness
is imparted to us without our meriting it, and solely of grace; but
good works, as the necessary effects of true faith, are the certain
verification of the same. The moral law is not. as in the Romish
church, predominantly objective, but is of a strictly inward character.
No one can do more than what God requires of him, for man is called to
perfection; all that is truly good is a requirement of the divine law
and not of any mere counsels, which, without the forfeiture of a
God-pleasing life, might in so far be left undone,--all the good that
we can do, we are also under obligation to do. The so-called counsels
of the Romish church are rather a hindering than a furthering of the
good, for they stand in the way of active love, and nourish the
delusion of personal merit. Monastic vows are not consistent with vital
faith. As man is saved only in virtue of redemption through Christ,
hence his salvation rests solely on the worthiness of Christ, and not
on personal merit; all true virtue must be simply a fruit of faith, and
hence of an already-acquired divine sonship, and consequently, though
it may verify this sonship, it cannot first acquire or heighten it.
Evangelical ethics is therefore apparently much less comprehensive in
its subject-matter than that of the Ronlish church,--treats a not
inconsiderable portion of the latter merely condemnatorily, as, e. g.,
the entire subject of asceticism, and of opera supererogatoria as
fulfilling the counsels; on the other hand, however, it has a deeper
ground and a higher earnestness. Romish asceticism simply hides from
view the inner lack of a truly evangelically moral depth. He who has
understood the entire and profound earnestness of the moral life-task,
and is conscious, how far the reality still falls below the moral
prototype, can never come upon the thought of attempting, in addition
to the moral task proposed to us by God, to perform still other
additional works, in order to attain to a still higher degree of
sanctity. All these self-imposed works are really an implication that
God placed the moral goal of man too low, and that He is thankfully
pleased to accept the voluntary and non-owed over-payment of those who
feel themselves superior to the ordinary assessment.
__________________________________________________________________
[142] Comp. H. Merz: System der christl. Sittenlehre in seiner
Gestaltung nach den Grundsetzen des Protestantismus im Gegensatze zum
Katholicismus, Tueb., 1841,--ingenious, but prepossessed by speculative
theories, and doing injustice to both sides.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXXVII.
The Reformers themselves treat the moral contents of the Christian
consciousness for the most part only practically; Melanchthon. develops
in his Loci merely the ground-thoughts, though he also attempts, on the
basis of Aristotle, a philosophical establishing of the foundations of
ethics; Calvin gives only brief outlines, independently of the earlier
scholastic method. The antithesis of the two evangelical churches
manifested itself also in wide-reaching differences of ethical views.
As an independent theological science, ethics was somewhat earlier
treated in the Reformed than in the Lutheran church. In the latter, it
was at first either combined, in its mere ground-principles, with
dogmatics, or treated merely practically and popularly; G. Calixtus,
however, treated it as a science distinctly separate from dogmatics,
though only in its scanty beginnings. From this time forward it was
frequently treated independently, though for the most part, even as
late as into the eighteenth century, only as casuistry; and Pietism,
which embraced so earnestly the ethical contents of Christianity,
although with some formal narrowness, prepared the way for a profounder
scientific treatment of ethics.
Luther himself, who embraced the evangelical ground-truths so clearly
and distinctly, was not called by the general scope of his activity to
the preparing of a system of scientific ethics proper. His warfare
against Romish work-holiness, and against the formal, subtle and
freedom-hampering casuistry of the Romanists, must have awakened in him
a certain disinclination to a rigidly-scientific development of ethics,
and an anxiety lest such a work might sink the free moral activity of
the Christian from the sphere of faith-communion with Christ into
unfree and juridical forms. He expressed it repeatedly, that the true
believer needs no law at all, because faith itself is both law and
power, and spontaneously works the God-pleasing out of free love
without being hampered by an objective law. As the apple-tree bears its
fruit not in virtue of a law given to it, but out of its own proper
nature, so are all Christians so tempered by faith that they
spontaneously do well and righteously better than all laws could teach
them to do. Even as the tree must exist antecedently to its fruit, and
as the fruit does not make a tree good or bad, but the tree makes the
fruit, so must man be good or bad before he does good or bad works. The
Christian's love is to be an outward-gushing love, flowing from within
out of the heart, out of his own little fountain; the spring and the
stream are themselves to be good,--are not to derive their waters from
without. Christ was a Redeemer, not a Lawgiver, and the Gospel is not
to be turned into a book of laws. With such views, so directly
antagonistic to the common Romish teaching, if we except the Mystics,
it was natural that a rigidly-drawn-up system of ethics might seem a
hampering to faith-born freedom,-- might seem like an adulterating of
the teachings of the Gospel with the doctrine of the law. This period
of agitated contest was therefore little adapted to the scientific
development of a system of ethics; this science was in fact the fruit
of the evangelical life as having come to inner peace and stability,
and as grown ripe through long experience in faith.
Of the chief Reformers, only Melanchthon,--who was of solid classic
culture, and who gave proof, at the time of his scientific maturity,
both of decided fondness for, and of a thorough understanding of,
Aristotle,--indicated, in his theological writings not only the
ground-thoughts of evangelical ethics, but gave even the outlines of a
system of philosophical ethics. Besides his valuable comments on the
Ethics and Politics of Aristotle, [143] he wrote, on the basis of
Aristotelian principles, Philosophiae moralis epitome, 1538. [144] In
this work Melanchthon keeps philosophical ethics and the Christian
knowledge of the moral strictly separate. The former is capable of
comprehending and presenting only a part of the divine law; it gives
only the natural law; but this is also a true divine law, which is
implanted in human reason; and the philosophical knowledge of the same
is a legitimate requirement and is an education toward the higher
truth, as also the true foundation of all civil legislation, and is
consequently by no means to be despised; moral reason is the mirror
from which the wisdom of God is reflected forth [Corp. Ref., pp. 21-27;
comp. 277]. The method of the work follows the plan of the ethics of
Aristotle, but presents far more solid principles. Man is the image of
God, and his goal is the true development and manifestation of this
image. Hence the end of man is to know and to recognize God, his
prototype, arid to manifest, in and through himself, the glory of God,
by willing and complete obedience [28 sqq]. Of the virtues that fall
within the scope of philosophical ethics, righteousness or justness
takes first rank, and this virtue is pretty fully discussed [63 sqq.],
especially in its civic significancy; more briefly are treated the
virtues of truthfulness, beneficence, thankfulness, and
friendship.--His philosophical ethics appeared, in 1550, entirely
re-written and more independent of Aristotle, as Ethicae doctrinae
elementa et enarratio libri quinti Ethicorum, and afterward in 1554,
'57, '60, and frequently after Melanchthon's death. [145] This
excellent work, though not comprehensive,--shorter even than the
previous work, and presenting only the general bases of the moral, and
examining more fully only certain special and, in part, civic
questions,--is written in a clear, concise, and beautiful style, and is
a worthy commencement toward a system of evangelical and, in fact,
essentially philosophical ethics,--since the seventeenth century
undeservedly laid aside, and also-in more recent times almost
forgotten.--A knowledge of the virtues is necessary, because it shows
that God is; for the eternal and immutable distinction of the moral and
the immoral in our reason cannot be fortuitous, hut must proceed from
the eternal, prescribing reason itself; it shows also how God is,
namely, wise, free, truthful, just, beneficent, merciful, etc.; it is a
witness of God's justly retributing judgments, and is a life-norm for
men in outward (not spiritual) actions and in discipline. Natural
reason, however, can discover neither the ground of the enfeeblement
which has resulted from sin, nor the means of salvation therefrom;
hence philosophy, without the Gospel, does not suffice [Corp. Ref.,
165-167]. Moral philosophy is the scientific presentation of the moral
law of nature in the sphere of external morals and discipline, and is,
in this field, in harmony with the Decalogue, and in so far also with
the Gospel; for the moral law is the eternal and immutable wisdom and
measure of the justice of God, obligating all rational creatures, and
condemning those who come into conflict with it; but the Gospel
preaches repentance, and promises forgiveness of sins on the ground of
redemption by grace. Now, though moral philosophy knows nothing of this
promise, yet, as being a part of the law, it also, on its part, leads
toward the Gospel, and is therefore not to be despised [C. R.,
167-170].--Ethics inquires first of all after the goal of the moral
course. This goal or end is God himself, who lovingly communicates
himself to us, and hence the true knowledge and reverencing of God. God
created man unto his image, hence He wills that He should himself be
manifested in and through man, namely, in that man becomes morally like
unto Him; only in a derived sense can it be said that virtue is the end
of man, as the highest good. The good is that which harmonizes with the
God-set goal; hence evil is a disturbing of the divine plan; and evil
is primarily a malum culpae, in pure antagonism to the divine will, and
then, secondarily, a malum poenae, which by the divine, righteous will
is made to follow upon the guilty malum culpae; God is in no sense
whatever the author or accomplice of sin,--to affirm this would be
blasphemy,--though He is indeed the author of the punishment [C. R.,
170-183].--Virtue, as an acquired tendency to obey right reason, is
conditioned on the fact that, on the ohe hand, reason guides the will
by a right judgment, and that on the other the will freely,
persistently and firmly lays hold upon this judgment, and has pleasure
in so doing. A knowledge of the law and a free-will are the
characteristics of the divine image as created in man by divine love;
virtue is the moral realization of this image,--is thankful, answering
love for received love. In reason, as darkened by sin, this knowledge
and freedom are indeed enfeebled, but not annihilated, and there
remained in man a moral consciousness of right and wrong, and some
degree of freedom to act conformably to this consciousness. Hence, the
will is then truly good when it corresponds to the moral consciousness
in so far as this consciousness harmonizes with the divine will. Hence
virtue--more definitely stated--is the tendency of the will constantly
to hearken to the moral consciousness for God's sake and out of
thankfulness toward him [183 sqq]. The thought of the moral freedom of
the will is, now, thoroughly, carefully, and very emphatically
developed by Melanchthon, and an attempt made to establish it by
Scripture (in harmony with Loci, iv, edition of 1559). Man as man, and
hence even unredeemed man, has in the moral sphere a free discretion to
prefer morality to crime, to perform outward moral works and to
preserve discipline, and it is God's will that such discipline and
order be freely preserved--not merely from fear, but also for
conscience' sake. Indeed, genuine God-fearing, right trust and right
love to God, steadfastness in confession, and hence, in fact, all the
truly God-pleasing spiritual virtues, are impossible without the
assistance of the Holy Spirit; in this assistance, however, man is not
purely inactive like a statue, but reason must attentively lay hold on
the Word of God, and the will must not resist, but must yield to the
gracious workings of the Holy Spirit, and aspire after divine support.
Absolute predestination and Stoic fatality are equally to be rejected.
The passions--by which Melanchthon understands both the impulses of
feeling and the desires--are not to be suppressed as irrational, as the
Stoics teach, but are to be taken into the service of the moral reason,
and those that have become evil by sin are to be resisted
[201-207].--The distribution of the virtues is best made according to
the Decalogue. But the commands of the first table cannot be adequately
known in a purely philosophical manner; nevertheless, some points may
be made. Every effect is dependent on its cause, and must remain in
harmony therewith; man is an effect of God, consequently he ought to
remain in harmony with God, and not break off the bond that unites him
with God. Moreover, as the image of God, man has the duty of remaining
in likeness and harmony with God [214, 215]. In the commandments of the
second table appears, first, the virtue of justness, and in fact
primarily in a general character, in the relation of those who guide
and those who are guided, in which relation obedience to parents and to
the magistracy, and piety in general, appear as a moral law of nature.
Justness in its special form--that which gives to every one his
dues--appears in the three following commandments, which require the
preserving of every one in his rights, in respect to life, to
wedlock-fidelity and to property. The second chief virtue, as expressed
in the eighth commandment, is truthfulness, which is a necessary
requirement of the rational nature of man; for in fact reason consists
essentially in a knowledge of the truth, and consequently it also
requires the truth. The two last commandments enjoin temperateness, but
they are not developed in detail. To these three chief virtues the
others are joined as branches, namely, steadfastness to truthfulness,
and thankfulness, beneficence, diligence, etc., to justness, especially
justness toward God [215-222].--In his second book, Melanchthon gives a
development of the virtue of justness in detail, with the omission of
the other virtues. Justness, or righteousness in the evangelical
sense--the virtue which acquires for man eternal salvation--cannot be
attained to by mere human effort because of the prevalence of sin, but
is imparted to man by grace in virtue of redemption; in moral
philosophy the question is therefore only as to the justness which
consists in the outward fulfilling of positive laws. This justness is,
in part, of a general character, consisting in obedience to law both
human and divine [as in Rom. ii, 13; Psa. cxix, 121], and in part of a
special character; the latter is, in its turn, of a distributive and of
an exchanging character; as distributive it relates to social order, as
well to social superordination and subordination as to the calling of
the proper persons to particular offices, and to rewarding and
punishing, and hence, in general, to the upholding of proper
discipline,--as exchanging it relates to the moral intercourse and
commerce of men among each other as equals. The practice of justness,
and hence also obedience toward those holding office and authority,
takes place not merely in virtue of human laws, but also in the
fulfilling of the divine will; the proper human ordinances of society
are God's ordinances. A violation of the law of nature, and hence also
disobedience toward the legitimate ordinances of civil authority, is
consequently not merely a civil misdemeanor, but also a sin against
God, a mortal sin. The ordinances of the natural law are in part
unconditional, and hence divine and perpetually-valid commands, such as
obedience toward God, parental duties, the virtue of truthfulness; and,
in part, only conditionally-valid, such as the keeping of peace and the
communistic use of property; the latter feature, in fact, would be
obligatory only on condition that mankind were not corrupted by sin; in
consequence of sin, however, the forcible protection and distinct
separation of property become necessary [222-234]. The guilt of
transgressions of the law is different according as the person does or
does not act with a clear consciousness of the law and of the deed;
guiltily-incurred error excuses not the deed, but rather heightens the
guilt, inasmuch as it is our duty to seek after the truth. Also violent
passions do not make the unlawful action an involuntary one, for man
-may and ought to control his passions [237-240].--Hereupon, and
apropos to the assumption of power on the part of the Pope over secular
governments, Melanchthon treats of the nature of, and the difference
between, the spiritual and the temporal powers, in essential agreement
with what he had said in his Loci [20, 21]; this is followed by
disquisitions on questions of civil right, on taxes and contracts.
In his Loci Melanchthon gives the general bases of the moral
consciousness in strictly Biblical form [Loci 3-6; 8-11]. The Old
Testament law is not identical with the eternal moral law, but contains
besides this law (which is indeed not fully included in the Decalogue,
but only indicated in its chief features) also the ceremonial and the
civil law, both of which had validity only until the advent of
Christianity. The moral law is the immediate and pure expression of the
divine wisdom and justness themselves, and hence was not first given by
Moses, but was always valid from the very beginning. Melanchthon's
somewhat extensive examination of the several divine laws in the order
of the Decalogue, may serve in many respects to complement his
philosophical ethics. He writes, here, free from the cramping fetters
of the long-observed schemata, and reckons among the "works" of the
first commandment: a proper knowledge of God, God-fearing, faith, love,
hope, patience, and humility. The Romish doctrine of the counsels he
refutes and rejects. The distinction between mortal and venial sins he
indeed retains, but he conceives it much more deeply,--understanding
under the latter such sins as are committed by Christians without evil
intention and with inner resistance to the evil, and are followed by
honest repentance, and under the latter those which are committed
premeditatedly and against conscience [Loc., 11]. In addition to this,
Melanchthon examines in special treaties and letters many particular,
and especially practico-moral, questions, [146] in a very judicious
manner.
In his scientific conception of the ethical task, Melanchthon furnishes
an essential complement to that of Luther, who fixed his attention
simply on the fact of the moral life of the regenerated as such,
without shaping the development of this fact out of the inner heart of
the Christian life, into an ethical science. Melanchthon himself,
however, did not complete this task, but simply began it; and although
we find in him frequently a slight over-estimation of Aristotle, still
we perceive in the vigorous manner in which, in his last ethical
writings, he breaks loose from all cramping and foreign forms and
thoughts, and lays an entirely new, purely Christian foundation, how
clearly he comprehended his task,--the carrying-out of which was
delayed by the soon-following inner struggles of the evangelical
church; only a few writers--Chytraeus, Victorin Strigel and Nicholas
Hemming--followed, in, as yet, feeble attempts, upon the path marked
out by Melanchthon. [147]
The rigid predestinarianism of Calvin seems at first thought still more
unfavorable for the development of ethics than the stand-point of
Luther; in reality, however, the Reformed church developed an
independent system of ethics earlier than the Lutheran. The
juridically-dialectic ground-character of the Calvinistic
world-conception necessarily led sooner than the more
mystically-inclined subjective Lutheran view, to a rigorous development
of the practical phase of religion. In his Institutio [iii, 6-10]
Calvin gives a short, plainly-biblical presentation of the bases of
Christian morality,--which, of course, can be actually practiced only
by the predestinated, but which is however for them, as being called to
purity, an unconditional duty. That virtue cannot actually obtain for
us salvation--communion with God--but is simply the necessary fruit of
the salvation already obtained by grace, and the constant bond of this
communion as established by grace, Calvin affirms very definitely.
Therein, precisely, consists, in his view, the essential superiority of
Christian to philosophical ethics, namely, that the former gives much
deeper-reaching motives for the good than the latter, to wit, thankful
love in return for God's love as revealed in redemption, and confiding
love to the Redeemer, in whom we have at the same time the perfect
personal pattern of the moral life. Out of this love to God in Christ
flows a love of justness or righteousness (in the Biblical sense of the
word) as the basis of the entire religious life. But the essence of
Christian righteousness consists in perfect self-denial, that is, in
the renunciation of all self-will and self-reason as opposed to
God,--in an unreserved surrender to God and his will; it draws us away
from love to the world, but must not sink into self-mortification and
false asceticism. Man must not, by arbitrary non-Scriptural ordinances,
impose upon himself a yoke. The moral life manifests itself [according
to Titus ii, 12] in three chief virtues: soberness, righteousness and
piety; to the first (sobrietas), which relates to the subject himself,
belong also chastity, temperateness and the enduring of privation; the
second relates to other men, and gives to each his dues; the third
separates us from the impurity of the world and unites us with
God.--Calvin gives expression, on the whole, also in his other numerous
moral essays, especially in his exegetical writings, to a moral view
which is no less earnest than sound, and generally keeps clear of all
un-Biblical austerity. To the Romish seeking of holiness by abnegation,
he opposes the thought, that the goods of this world are designed not
merely for our absolute wants, but also for our moral delight; their
enjoyment is not forbidden, but it should be made to contribute to the
glory of God. The strict church discipline established and exercised by
Calvin was indeed an offense to a gainsaying world, but was morally
perfectly justifiable. His unevangelical view of the right of capital
punishment against heretics, belongs less to the sphere of ethics
proper than to that of civil right.
In all essential points the ethical systems of the Reformed and of the
Lutheran churches are in harmony; there is manifest throughout,
however, a general characterizing difference in the coloring given to
the otherwise essentially harmonizing forms; this difference we cannot
here follow into its finer shades; [148] a few of the more general
traits will suffice. The ethics of the Lutheran church bears
predominantly an anthropologico-subjective character, that of the
Reformed a theologico-objective character; the former proceeds from the
inner life-source of the regenerated heart, and constructs, therefore,
only hesitatingly an ethical system proper,--as, in some degree,
superfluous; the latter sets out from the unconditional will of God to
man, and hence felt much earlier the need of a scientific expression of
the moral law, objective to the consciousness; the former wears rather
a Paulino-free stamp, the latter rather an Old Testament stamp; in the
Reformed church sermons on morals have a much more prominent place than
in the Lutheran. Lutheran ethics expresses, also in its christology,.
the transfiguration of the human through indwelling grace, Reformed
ethics, rather the glorifying of God in and through the elect. With
both, the goal of morality is the glory of God,--in the Lutheran
church, however, more through the witness of the salvation-experience
of the redeemed, in the Reformed, more through the offering of willing
obedience under the law; in the former predominates rather the
manifestation of the filial relation, in the latter, rather that of
submissive service; in the former there is greater freedom in the
self-determination of the believing subject, even to the danger of
Antinomianism, in the latter greater rigor of outward discipline,
incurring danger of Puritanic rigorism and pedantic externality. The
moral life of the Lutheran church bears, so to speak, a lyric
character, that of the Reformed a practico-juridical one; hence the
former expressed itself, naturally enough, in the sublimest soaring of
church hymnology, the latter crystallized itself into a sharply-defined
and regular church discipline; in the former predominates the mystical
heart-element of union with God, in the latter predominates a rational
contrasting of God and man. In the former all that is natural is
ethically exalted and taken into the service of the holy; whereas, in
the latter, the spiritual is exalted bly being divested of the natural.
The morality of the Lutheran church develops itself rather from the
fullness of inner life toward knowledge, that of the Reformed rather
from knowledge toward life-fullness; the former is more immediate,
natural and unconscious, the latter is more mediate, calculating,
doctrinary; the former is directed more inwardly, the latter more
outwardly; the former is more an outgush out of the deep and
overflowing feeling of love and bliss, the latter, more an intentional
act of the earnest but calm will,--as also, in the Lutheran view of
salvation, the attention is fixed more upon the all-embracing love of
God, and in the Reformed more upon the decrees of the will of God; Mary
and Martha are types of the respective ethical tendencies. The Lutheran
Christian does good works because he is certain of his salvation
through faith; the Reformed does them in order that he may become
certain of his saving faith, and hence of his election,--good works are
to him necessary unto salvation, though not its cause. The Lutheran
needs the law and its discipline, strictly speaking, only in so far as
he has as yet in himself sinful elements which need to be taken into
discipline; but to the Reformed, the law is a real and necessary guide
for the regenerated heart itself. Hence, to the Reformed, the Gospel
wears essentially also the character of law in the Old Testament sense,
and the Old Testament law is taken lit6rally as yet binding,--hence the
rigid observance of the Sabbath and the prohibition of statues and
pictures. In the Lutheran catechism the ten commandments precede the
confession of faith; in most of the Reformed churches they stand after
the same, and constitute, in the French and English service, an
essential part of the liturgy. This seemingly insignificant
circumstance is in fact very significant; in the Lutheran view the law
has essentially the purpose of educating toward the true freedom of the
children of God, which freedom itself, when once attained to, has no
longer any need of an outward law; in the Reformed view the law is an
essential part of the Christian faith-life itself, but an objective,
purely-divine element still external to the regenerated subject. The
Lutheran is fearful rather of work-holiness, the Reformed rather of
non-conformity to the law; the former has the law rather as his inward
personal property, the latter rather as a categorical imperative
external to his own subjective will. To the Lutheran, Moses and Christ
stand in sharp contrast to each other; to the Reformed they are most
intimately united; "one must live as if there were no Gospel, and die
as if there were no law," says, very significantly, the Reformed divine
Baile (Praxis pietatis, 1635). To the Lutheran, Christ is, in ethical
respects, rather the beloved Saviour, out of love to whom and in
communion with whom he lives in holiness; to the Reformed he is more
the moral pattern by which man is constantly learning, and which he
endeavors to imitate. Hence Lutheran ethics appears predominantly as
the doctrine of virtue and of goods, Reformed ethics as the doctrine of
the law. The Lutheran Christian conceives the good essentially as the
morally-beautiful, and hence he has also appreciation and love for the
beautiful in general,--gives expression to art, and makes it even a
moral agency; the Reformed conceives the good essentially as the right,
and hence he has little taste or love for art as a moral power, but all
the higher an appreciation for the legally-disciplined development of
the church and of moral society; to the former the highest virtue is
believing love; to the latter, righteousness. The moral consciousness
of the Lutheran conceives the highest good rather as a power directly
given by grace and reflecting from itself the moral life; the Reformed
consciousness makes the moral life an essential factor in the obtaining
of the highest good. Hence, in the ethical sphere, the antithesis of
the Lutheran doctrine to the Romish is more violent than that of the
Reformed; hence also the Reformed church, but not the Lutheran,
developed a theocratical form of the church, and placed in general much
greater emphasis on the legal and governmental development of the
purely moral community of the church as in contrast to the state, and
as a determining power for and over the same, whereas the subjective
inwardliness of Lutheran Christians manifested little interest for such
development. Such are the differences which, while they indeed manifest
a general ethical antithesis of the two forms of doctrine, yet in fact
constitute only two corresponding and manifoldly-complementing, but not
mutually-excluding phases of the same unitary evangelical
consciousness.
The theological ethics of the evangelical church was treated as a
separate science, [149] first by the learned Reformed divine Danaeus
(Daneau, ob. 1596) in his Ethica christiana (1577, '79, '88 and
1601),--in a rigidly Calvinistic sense, with a large using of
Augustine, Aristotle, and the Schoolmen, in strong opposition, however,
sometimes to the two latter sources, resulting in a learned and
thoughtful work, though as yet somewhat immature. He endeavors
especially to solve the apparent contradiction between the doctrine of
predestination and the requirements of the moral consciousness, though
not with very happy results; the special treatment of duties he bases
on the Decalogue; in respect to Church-discipline he requires the
greatest rigor,--for heretics, capital punishment. (In connection with
this ethics stands his Politica christiana, 1596-1606). The antithesis
which Danaeus makes between Christian ethics and Aristotelian
philosophical ethics, was rejected by Keckermann (ob. 1609 in
Heidelberg), who considered ethics as essentially a philosophical
science, and Aristotle as its true founder; [150] while the severely
Puritanical Amesius (in Holland, ob. 1634) emphasized again very
strongly the distinction of Christian from philosophical ethics,
placing Christian ethics along-side of dogmatics. [151] (The
distinguishing of ethics and dogmatics as the two parts of the body of
Christian doctrine, appears also in the Reformed divine, Polanus of
Basle.) [152] Walaeus (in Holland, ob. 1639) attempted in his
compendium of the ethics of Aristotle (1620) to imbue this work with a
Christian spirit. More important, despite its rather popular style, is
the peculiar work of the moderate Calvinist Amyraud (Amyraldus, at
Saumlur, ob. 1664). [153] He distributes ethics historically, into the
ethics of the pure unfallen state, into that of heathenism, and of
Judaism and of Christianity; the first part contains the general
philosophical considerations. The historical treatment of the subject
gives a just appreciation also of heathen ethics, without intermingling
Christian ethics therewith.--The ethics of the Reformed church was
casuistically treated by the Puritan Perkins (of Cambridge, 1611), also
by the above-mentioned Amesius, and by the German Alsted (1621, 1630),
who distributed the subject-matter according to the chief heads of the
Catechism. Also Forbesius `a Corse treated the subject in the order of
the Decalogue, in his learned though quite practically-written work on
moral theology, considered as the special doctrine of duties. [154]
Ethics was treated in a popular, edifying manner by La Placette,
Pictet, Basnage, and by the Englishman Richard Baxter. The scientific
and purely theological form of Reformed ethics was still further
developed, in the eighteenth century, by Hoornbeek (1663), by Peter of
Mastricht (1699), who follows Amesius, by Heidegger (1711), by Lampe
(1727), and by others. In the middle of the eighteenth century the
rigid form of Calvinistic ethics begins to give way, and the influence
of the philosophy of Wolf commences to break down the confessional
antithesis in the field of morals.
In the Lutheran church there was at first but little done beyond the
already-mentioned further developments of the philosophical ethics of
Melanchthon, with the exception of a single, though not purely
theological, attempt of the Melanchthonian Hamburger, Von Eitzen: [155]
theology is so involved in dogmatical controversies as to have in
general but little inclination toward a scientific development of
ethics; it treated the weightier and more general questions only
briefly, in dogmatics, in connection with the doctrines of free-will,
of sin, of the law, and of sanctification, leaving the more detailed
treatment of the subject rather for such practical writers as worked
toward the Christian edification of the masses,--writers who were in
some respects related to the Mystics, and among whom two deserve
especial attention. The first of these, John Valentine Andreae, of
Wurtemberg (ob. 1654), is a very morally-earnest spirit, thoroughly
dovoted to practical Christianity, of slightly mystical tendencies, of
thorough scientific culture, and of deep acquaintance with human
nature. Strongly impressed with the Calvinistic church discipline in
Geneva, Andreae devoted his unwearying efforts to the bringing about of
moral discipline also in the German church, though he found a rather
unreceptive age, and was much deceived in his, at times, somewhat
idealistic hopes. His numerous moral writings,-- often clothed in
poetical and especially allegorical forms, and sometimes satirical,
though always hiding, even in hilarity, a very deep and often
melancholy earnestness,--are always directed to definite special
objects, and hence present no connected whole. Holding fast to the
faith of the church, he yet rebuked indignantly the unfruitful
hair-splitting spirit of dogmatic controversy, and insisted on the one
thing needful; at the same time, it is true, he occasionally too
lightly esteemed man's scientific right to a clear knowledge of the
contents of faith, as well as the significancy of the doctrinal
differences between the churches; and, in his desire for a moral
reformation of the church, he too little considered the importance of
pure doctrine, and was too indulgent toward many opposers of the
same.--The second, John Arndt, (ob. 1621), was spiritually kindred to
Andreae and held him in high esteem; Arndt was an evangelical Thomas `a
Kempis, and combined evangelical fidelity of faith with mystical
subjectivity and practical zeal for morality, and exerted a
deep-reaching, beneficent influence on the evangelical churches. His
work entitled Four Books of True Christianity (at first in
1605-10)--with the exception of the Imitation of Christ, the most
widespread of German books of devotion-bears indeed sometimes a rather
strong mystical coloring (in this respect following somewhat in the
path of Tauler and of the "German Theology"), and under-estimates, in
many respects, the significancy of the objective means of grace, and
lays chief emphasis on the mystical, direct union of the soul with God;
nevertheless it constituted so essential and so salutary a
complementing of the somewhat one-sidedly theorizing theological spirit
of the age, and so powerfully stirred up the partially-dormant moral
consciousness, that Arndt will always occupy an eminent place in the
history of morality and of practical ethics, A per se unimportant and
yet fruitful attempt at a purely theological system of ethics,
unconnected with dogmatics, was made by George Calixt of Helmstaedt;
his Epitome theologiae moralis (p. I, 1634; 1662,) is only a short,
incomplete outline, giving in fact only an introduction. The purpose of
ethics is, to describe the way to blessedness, the life of the already
spiritually-regenerated Christian; regeneration itself is presupposed;
the foundation, even of Christian morality, is the ten commandments,
which are a revealed re-establishment of the original law of nature;
but the difference of Christian ethics from Old Testament ethics is not
made prominent enough. In the footsteps of Calixt followed J. C. Duerr
of Altdorf, who, for the first, gave a tolerably complete and learned
treatise on ethics; [156] he distinguishes between virtues toward God,
toward others, and toward ourselves; in regard to theatrical
spectacles, to jesting, etc., he shows a less rigid severity than the
ethical writers of the Reformed church; and this difference of view is
manifest also among the other Lutheran moralists, if we except the
Pietists. Of the same tendency was also G. T. Meier, of Helmstaedt,
whose erudite and profound introduction to ethics [157] examines, for
the first time, with critical discrimination the presuppositions of
this science. (H. Rixner, in a briefer work in 1690.) Aristotle is used
also in these theological treatises on ethics, without, however,
damagingly influencing their theological character.
The ethics of the Lutheran church was treated more frequently
casuistically than in a systematic form; it bore this character even as
late as into the eighteenth century, and forms, properly speaking, only
an amassment of material for a subsequent scientific development. As
occasioned by the casuistry of the Romish church, the casuistry of the
evangelical church, in express antithesis thereto, manifests, on the
basis of Scripture and of spiritual experience, a greater certainty and
simplicity, and preserves a middle-ground between the sophistical
laxity of the Jesuitical view and the rigid severity of the
Calvinistic. Many of these works contain also many dogmatic questions
together with their decisions. The distribution of the subject-matter
follows, for the most part, the order of the catechism; the answer is
given on the basis of the Scriptures, and then confirmed by the
decisions of the Fathers and of later writers, especially of Luther and
of the other Reformers. The first work of this kind, after the
already-mentioned Consilia of Melanchthon, is by Baldwin of Wittenberg,
[158] and obtained great popularity; it treats chiefly of the. casus
conscientiae, that is, of such moral questions as the common conscience
cannot immediately and satisfactorily decide, but in regard to which it
may fall into doubt, and which consequently can be decided only by a
careful weighing of the word of God. He classifies these cases
according to the moral objects: God, angels, the subject himself, and
other men. (L. Dunte of Reval, gave a thousand and six decisions on
conscience-questions of a moral and dogmatical character, in 1643.)
Olearius of Leipzig, who had already previously presented ethics in
tabular form, examined thoroughly, and with the most minute and
discriminating exactness, the purpose and the nature of casuistry;
[159] casuistry was more fully carried out by Dannhauer, [160] by G.
Koenig, [161] but especially circumstantially by John Adam Osiander,
[162] who introduces into the subject almost the entire body of
dogmatics; he classifies the cases in the order of the Decalogue; under
the sixth commandment, e. g., he proposes the question whether in a
case of extreme necessity it is allowable to eat human flesh, and, in
opposition to the Jesuits, negatives it (ii, p. 1367). The work of
Mengering (superintendent in Halle) Scrutinium conscientiae
catecheticum, that is, a "Reproving of Sin and Searching of the
Conscience," etc. (3 ed. 1686, 4to.), more especially intended for
moral self-examination, is classified minutely and circumstantially
according to the Decalogue, and is morally earnest and judicious,
though it presents also a few peculiarities ( e. g., p. 752, as to the
inadmissibility of tobacco-smoking, then called tobacco-drinking). Only
in part, belongs in this place the voluminous work: Consilia theologica
Witebergensia, that is, ("Wittenberg's Spiritual Counsels,"
etc.--(Frankfort on the Main, 1664)--which contains, in an immense
folio, judgments of Luther and of his co-laborers, and decisions of the
Wittenberg faculty on doctrinal points, moral and ecclesiastico-legal
questions (also matrimonial questions). Of a similar character is the
Opus novum quaestionum Practico-Theologicum (Frankfort, 1667, fol.),
which treats, in the order of the common Loci, sixteen hundred and
sixty-seven questions,--also that of Dedekenn: Thesaurus consiliorum
theol. et jurid. (1623), revised by John C. Gerhard (Jena, 1671, 4
vols. fol.).
Also the theological "Bedenken" of the eighteenth century belong to the
sphere of this casuistical ethics. Among these works those of Spener
occupy a peculiar and significant place, and constitute, together with
his other more or less ethical writings, a turning-point in the
development of the evangelical moral consciousness. Their significancy
rests less in their single judgments than in their peculiar
ground-thoughts. Spener,--who was imbued with the spirit of Thomas `a
Kempis, of Andreae and of Arndt, and in part, even of Tauler, and who
restlessly labored in the path trod by these men for a moral bettering
of the Christian church,--called forth by the Pietism which proceeded
from him, a deep-reaching, beneficent movement in the moral life and in
the moral views of the evangelical church, although indeed in
consequence of his one-sided emphasizing of the practical, he treated
science itself somewhat too lightly, and set too high an estimate on
certain outward forms of devout morality, and thus needlessly limited
the legitimate liberty of a regenerated Christian. Spener's Pia
desideria [163] are directed essentially to an improving of the
ecclesiastical life, to a stronger emphasizing of holiness in the
spiritual activity of the church, to a stirring-up of the
church-membership to churchly spontaneity, to the bringing about of a
more edifying manner of doctrinal. preaching, and, on the other hand,
against the misuse of the doctrine of justification by faith. His
ethical works proper, though only bearing on particular cases,
especially of the inner life, are found in his Theological
Considerations, [164] which exercised a wide-reaching and wholesome
influence on the church.--Spener insisted with much more earnestness on
the significancy of spiritual regeneration for the moral life than did
the orthodoxy of the day, in its one-sided emphasizing of theoretical
faith. The man of the Holy Spirit has nothing in common with the sinful
world and its lusts; his total life-stream flows from a new and
absolutely. holy fountain; worldly pleasure is foreign and uncongenial
to him, and therefore to be avoided. The morality of the Pietists was
distinguished primarily by an especial rigor in regard to the sphere of
the allowed, inasmuch as it viewed as absolutely unallowable many
worldly enjoyments which in the Evangelical Lutheran church had, thus
far, been regarded (too unsuspiciously, it is true) as adiaphora, and
consequently as not strictly unallowable, especially such as dancing,
card-playing, theater-visiting, banqueting, gayness of dress, and the
like; it denied altogether that there are any morally indifferent
things; whatever is not done to the glory of God, and springs not of
faith, is sin; and these amusements cannot consist with a pious frame
of the heart,--cannot take place in faith, and to the glory of God.
This is, however, only an outer manifestation of a very deep-reaching
antithesis of Pietism to the hitherto prevalent views of the Lutheran
church. The high evangelical thought of Gospel-freedom and of
justification by faith alone, had in fact, in the time of the declining
church-life, led, in many respects, to erroneous courses, and had often
allowed the moral earnestness of holiness to give place to mere formal
orthodoxy, and also sometimes occasioned, in contrast to the severe
earnestness of the discipline of the Reformed church, too. careless a
regard for the outward forms of the moral life, and had enlarged beyond
measure the sphere of morally-indifferent things. The notion had
obtained for itself vogue, that whatever is not forbidden in Scripture
is allowable. It was the reaction of a truly Christian conscience,
which caused Pietism to discard this somewhat presuming maxim, and, in
any case, the thought which it opposed thereto was strictly legitimate,
namely, that there is nothing indifferent in the entire life-sphere of
a regenerated person, but that every thing without exception must stand
in living relation to the new spiritual life-principle, and that
whatever does not admit of a true association. with the same is not
simply indifferent, but is un-Christian. Pietism may have made many
mistakes in the application of this thought, but the thought itself
had, as in contrast to the one-sided orthodoxy then prevalent, its own
good right. Furthermore, Spener brought again into the fore-ground the
thought which, while indeed dogmatically admitted, had yet never been
sufficiently emphasized morally, namely, that faith without works is
dead; the sanctification of the heart and life does not simply follow
upon, and stand in connection with, true faith, but is in such faith
already itself directly contained; there are not two spiritual
life-streams, but only one; the moral personality itself as justified
by faith admits of no falling apart of faith and morality; all
religious life is immediately and necessarily at the same time
moral,--is not simply followed by the moral as a second collateral
element. In the eyes of declining orthodoxy, religion had become too
much a mere objective something by which the religious subject is
simply embraced and influenced, but not thoroughly permeated; Pietism
brought religion and its divine spirit-principle again entirely within
the Christian subject, and caused the subject, as now transformed, to
create a new Spirit-witnessing, objective morality. The Christian
conscience is quickened and made more vigorously active by Pietism; the
views thus far prevalent in the Lutheran church are, in the eyes of
Pietism, not strictly conscientious, seeing that they tolerate many
manners of action which do not flow from the Christian conscience, and
are not consistent with it.--The morality of Pietism is by no means of
a predominantly outwardly-active working character,--is in fact very
different from the more recent activity of the "inner mission," but is
predominantly subjective,--is one-sidedly directed toward the
morally-pious heart-condition of the subject, and sustains to the outer
world rather a rejecting, negating and uninterested relation; the
ascetic tendency which constantly grew more prominent, especially among
Spener's followers, rose even to a manifest preference of celibacy to
marriage, and to an avoidance of political offices (in the spirit of
Tertullian), and to a refusing of military service. When its orthodox
opponents reproached Pietism with an unevangelical seeking of
sanctification by works, with a tendency to the monkish spirit and the
like, they did not do it full justice; and it was in vain that they
undertook to check the historically-justified movement, and,
notwithstanding all their hostile exaggerations, they saw very clearly
the questionable narrownesses of the movement they opposed--more
clearly than they saw their own; and it is not exclusively through
Pietism, but also in virtue of the opposition which it awoke, that the
religiously-moral consciousness of the church was stimulated to a
higher life.--The Pietistic tendency proper, because of its
disinclination to abstract science, produced no ethical works of
importance; most important are: Breithaupt: Theol. moralis (1732, 4to.;
Institt theol., 3 parts, 1716), and the moral parts of Joachin Lange's
Oeconomia salutis (1728.) But the popular Pietistic works, written for
the masses of the church, were more influential.
__________________________________________________________________
[143] In Ethica Arist. comment., 1529, treating only the 1st and 2d
books; in 1532 were added the 3d and 5th; re-written in 1545 as
Enarratio aliquot librorum Eth. Ar., etc.,--in the Corpus Reformatorum
of Bretschneider and Bindseil, t. xvi, p. 277-416.--Comment. in aliquot
politicos libros Aristot., 1530, in Corp. Ref., ib., p. 417 sqq.
[144] Corp. Ref., xvi, pp. 21-164. The following editions, 1539, '40,
are largely changed; three later ones, 1542-'46, are like that of 1540.
[145] Corp. Ref., xvi, pp. 165-276; not printed in the earlier Opp.
[146] De conjugio; quaestiones aliquot ethicae, de juramentis, etc.,
1552; in Corp. Ref., xvi, 453 sqq. Consilia s. judicia theol., ed.
Pezellii. 1660.
[147] J. C. E. Schwarz in Stud. u. Krit., 1853; Pelt., ib., 1848.
[148] Comp. Schneckenburger: Vegleichende Darstellung des luth. u. ref.
Lehrbegriffs, 1855; Tholuck: Das kirchl. Leben des 17 Jahrh., i, 199
sqq., 218 sqq., 301 sqq.; ii, 140 sqq., 239 sqq.
[149] On the history of the earlier Reformed ethics, see Schweizer in
Stud. u. Krit., 1850.
[150] Systema ethicae in his Opp., 1614.
[151] Medulla theologiae, 1630, and frequently, a brief compendium; De
conscientiae et ej. jure vel casibus, 1630, and
subsequently,--casuistical.
[152] Syntagma theol., 1610.
[153] La morale chrestienne, 1652 sqq., 6 t.,--rare in Germany; see
Staeudlin iv, 404 sqq.; Schweizer in Stud. u. Krit., 1683.
[154] Opp., Amst., 1703.
[155] Comp. Pelt in Stud. u. Krit., 1848.
[156] Enchiridion theol. mor., 1662; later as: Compend., 1675-98 4to.
[157] Introd. in univ. theol. mor. studium, 1671. And as the beginning
of a development of ethics itself: Disputt. theol., 1679.
[158] Tactatus luculentus, etc., 1628, '35, and later.
[159] Introd. brevis in theol. casuisticam, 1694.
[160] Liber conscientiae, 2 ed. 1679, 2 t., and Theologia casualis,
1706.
[161] Casus consc., Altdorf, 1676, 4to.
[162] Theol. casualis, 1680, 6 t., 4to.
[163] Appearing first in 1675 as a preface to Arndt's Postille,
afterward separately,--often printed.
[164] Theologische Bedenken, 1700, 1712, 4 vols.; Letzte theol.
Bedenken, 1711, 3 vols.; Consilia et judicia theol., 1709, 3 vols., and
many other smaller works.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXXVIII.
The ethics of the Roman Catholic church, after the Reformation, was
treated for the most part as a constantly increasing and more
minute-growing body of casuistry. The highest development of the same,
and at the same time the greatest perversion of Christian ethics, also
in regard to its moral contents, appeared in the semi-Pelagianizing
ethics of the Jesuits. The place of the unconditional validity of the
moral idea is here largely usurped by outward adaptability to the weal
of the visible church, as the highest end; the place of the unshaken
authority of the Scriptures and of early Christian tradition, by the
authority of certain special Doctors; the place of moral conviction, by
probabilism; the place of moral honesty, by a sophistical construing of
the moral law to the present fortuitous advantage of the church and of
the individual, and by the falsehood of reservationes mentales; and the
place of the moral conscience, by rational and cunning calculation;
thus the essence of the moral law becomes entirely unsettled; and the
practical application of moral principles, an unserious exercise of
sophistry.
At first thought we are surprised at the exceeding fruitfulness of the
Romish theology of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries in ethical
writings, in comparison with which the evangelical church, and
especially the Lutheran, is very barren. Opposition to the
faith-principle of the Evangelical church, led the Romish church to an
especial development of the practical phase of religion, as in fact, in
the order of the Jesuits, a vigor of activity hitherto unknown in the
Romish church makes at this time its appearance; and precisely this
order was the chief representative of Romish ethics.--The more purely
scientific form of ethics lingered in general strictly within the
limits of the scholastico-Aristotelian rut. Francis Piccolomini, a
much-lauded Aristotelian, in Italy (ob. 1604) produced a comprehensive
and discursive moral philosophy [165] based on Aristotle and Plato; but
his writings do not give proof of any independence, and fail to satisfy
the Christian consciousness.
The Order of the Jesuits, as calculated in its very nature for action,
for the championship of the endangered Romish church, was called by its
fundamental principle to the development of a special system of
morality,--a system the highest end of which is the glory of God
through the exaltation of the visible church. The majority of the
Jesuitical presentations of ethics treat, for the most part, only of
the more or less classified circle of single cases, while the more rare
systematic works follow very closely the traditions of scholasticism.
[166] --Very soon after the Reformation the Jesuits appeared in the
field of ethics; we will mention only the more important. Among the
Spaniards were: Francis Tolet (a cardinal, ob. 1596, Summa casuum
conscientiae, often printed); Azorio (Institutiosnes morales, 1600,
3t.; 1625, 2t.); Vasquez (Opusc. mor.; 1617); Henriquez (Summa, 1613
fol.); Thomas Sanchez, whose learned work, De matrimonio, [167] was
highly esteemed, (but which, in the invention and discussion of
indelicate questions, transgresses the bounds of all propriety), and
who by his sweeping doctrine of probabilism deeply unsettles the
foundations of all morality; (of him are further: Opus morale s. Summa
casuum, Col. 1614, 2t.; Consilia s. opuscula mor., Lugd. 1635, 2 fol.);
Francis Suarez, in numerous very ingenious works; Alphonso Rodriguez
(Exercitium perfectionis, etc., 1641); Antonio de Escobar, one of the
most important of the casuists (Liber theol. moral., etc., Ludg., 1646;
Universae theol. moral. problemata, Ludg., 1663, 7 fol.); and Gonzales
(Fundamentum theol. moralis., 1694, 4to.) Among the Italians were:
Tamburini, and Filliucci (Moral. quaest., 1622, 2 fol.) Among the
French: Bauny, and Raynauld. Among the Germans: Layman (Theol. mor.,
1625, 3 4to.); Busenbaum, of Munster, whose Medulla casuum consc. has
had, since 1645, more than fifty editions, [168] --an able, clear,
compact manual in tolerably systematic order, and authoritative almost
throughout the whole Order, although in many respects assailed, even by
popes, and in some countries proscribed. Among the Netherlanders:
Leonard Less (in several works), and Besser (De conscientia, 1638,
4to.) The contents and manner of treatment of most of these works are
very similar.
The peculiar character of Jesuitical ethics rests on the fundamental
purpose of the order as a whole, namely, the rescuing of the Church,
the bride of Christ, as endangered by the Reformation in its very
foundations, and hence the rescuing of the honor of God from a most
pressing danger. In a struggle of life and death one is not very
careful in the choice of means, and in all warfare the sentiment holds
good, though involving manifold violations of ordinary right, that the
end sanctifies the means. The rescuing of the Romish church at any
price is the task, even should it involve an entering into alliance
with the dark powers of this sinful world, and with the passions and
sinful proclivities of the unsanctified multitude. The one exclusively
aimed-at end makes use of the systematized totality of moral ends as
mere means, and the morally-contracted view taken of this one end leads
naturally and of itself to morally unallowable means. The real, visible
church is not measured by the idea of the true or ideal church, but all
moral ideas are measured by the visible church. The Jesuits were well
aware that they were an essentially new phenomenon of the churchly
life,--that they stood upon purely human invention and power; we need
not be surprised therefore to find that in their moral system human
invention and human authority stand in the foreground. The expressed
opinion of a church doctor forms a sufficient basis for a legitimate
moral decision. The eternal and objective foundations of the moral are
exchanged for the subjective view of individual persons of eminence.
The contradictions thereby resulting render the single subject all the
less trammeled,--enable him to follow the decision which he most
prefers. Another of their peculiarities is their discipline; the
required unconditional obedience to the commands of superiors takes the
place of the personal conscience, and paralyzes its power; it becomes a
duty of the members of the order to have no personal conscience
whatever, and to subordinate the individual conscience unconditionally
and blindly to the general conscience of the order; a collective
conscience, however, is a poor one, and poorest of all when it is
represented by one single person. Thus the Jesuit accustoms himself
from the very start, blindly to follow the authority of a single
eminent man, and Probabilism is, in his moral theory, an inevitable
matter of course.
This, then, is the distinguishing characteristic of Jesuitical
ethics,--that in the place of the eternal objective ground and
criterion of the moral, it substitutes subjective opinion, and in the
place of an unconditional eternal end, a merely conditionally valid
one, namely, the defending of the actual, visible church against all
forms of opposition,--that in the place of the moral conscience, it
substitutes the human calculating of circumstantial and fortuitous
adaptation to the promotion of this its highest end,--that it attempts
to realize that which is per se and absolutely valid by a wide-reaching
isolating of the means, but in so doing subordinates morality to the
discretion of the single subject.--While the ethics of the Jesuits
appears as lax and quite too indulgent toward worldly, sinful
proclivities and fashions, yet this is only one phase of the matter. A
merely worldly-lax moral system, in the usual sense, seems but little
applicable to the members of a brotherhood the first rule of which is a
perfect renunciation of personal will and personal opinion and
self-determination, in a word, unconditional obedience to every command
of superiors, and which has actually accomplished in the missionary
field the grandest of deeds, and numbers, among its members, multitudes
of heroic martyrs. This lack of strictness in one direction rests by no
means on mere worldliness, on pleasure in the delights of this life,
but follows, on the one hand, of necessity (as well as does also the
rigor of obedience) from the subjectively-arbitrary presupposition of
the entire order, from the lack of an objective, unshaken foundation,
and rests, on the other hand, strictly on calculation,--is itself a
cunningly-devised means to the end,--is intended to awaken, especially
in the great and mighty of the earth (and the masses of the people are
such under some circumstances), a love to the church, to the mild,
friendly, indulgent mother; and these concessions to the world formed a
contrast to the severer moral views of the evangelical church, and
especially to the over-rigid discipline of the Reformed church; and the
contrast was tempting.--The purpose--zealously pursued by the Jesuits
in the interest of Romish domination--of becoming soul-guarding fathers
and conscience-counselors, especially for men and women of eminence,
required, on the one hand, that the Jesuits themselves should acquire
for themselves the highest possible repute in ethics,--and hence it was
requisite that they should become the literary representatives
thereof,--and, on the other, that this ethics should be molded in
adaptation to this end,--should make itself not disagreeable and
burdensome, but should become as elastic as possible in view of
different wants,--should be a "golden net for catching souls," as the
Jesuits themselves were wont to call their own pliableness. The more
ramified and complex the net-work of casuistic ethics became, so much
the more indispensable were the practiced conscience-counselors, or
more properly, conscience-advocates; the more stairways and back doors
they were able to turn attention to in conscience affairs, so much the
more prized and influential they became. This explains the great
compass and the peculiar character of Jesuitical ethics. The becoming
accustomed to slippery and precipitous ways, and the pleasure in the
ready-finding of sophistical authority for morally novel positions, led
of itself unconsciously into still deeper error. "Accommodation" was
the magic word which opened the way for a surprisingly-rich storehouse
of moral rules. Confession, where made to Jesuits, lost much of its
seriousness, and nowhere else was absolution so easily obtainable for
those who were to be won over, nowhere penance and satisfaction so
readily done with,--and this not merely in fact, but also from
principle. Penance is to be chosen as light as possible; the confessor
may impose as penance, on the confessing one, the good or evil which
h1e can do or suffer on the same day or in the same week; the penance
may, when there exists a sufficient reason, be even performed for one
person by another, etc. [169] Also in most cases it is not a very
serious matter even if the absolved one neglects entirely the imposed
penance.
The development of Jesuitical ethics is by no means a phenomenon
essentially new; the bases therefor were already long extant; it is
only a further building upon the same foundations. The Pelagianizing
view of the moral ability of the human will and of the meritoriousness
of outward works lay already at the basis of the entire system of
monkish holiness, and the Jesuits went only one step further when they,
in contradiction to Thomas Aquinas, taught often almost entirely as
Pelagius. The earlier casuistry in its lack of fixed principles had
already shaken the moral foundation; and the too great indulgence in
sophistry on particular, and, in part, entirely imaginary, cases, had
beclouded the unsophisticated moral consciousness; the doctrine of
probabilism had been already sanctioned at Constance, and in many
respects practically applied. The entanglement of the church with the
then so manifoldly-complicated state of European politics, with worldly
passions and rancors, and its very worldly struggles against the
worldly state, had already long since undermined the purity of the
ecclesiastical conscience, and the maxim, that the end sanctifies the
means, had already been long practiced and approved by the church
before it was, by the Jesuits (if not sanctioned in express words, yet
in fact on the largest scale) put into practice; the per se not
incorrect distinguishing of venial from mortal sins offered easy
opportunity of indefinitely enlarging the sphere of the former by a
limitation or a ready transforming of the sphere of the latter, while
at the same time the ever-growing readiness in granting indulgences was
making the sphere even of mortal sins of a less terrifying character,
especially for those at whose command stood the keys to the
treasure-chambers of indulgence; and in fact it was these especially,
namely, the rich and noble, who enjoyed the advantages of the
generosity of Jesuitic ethics. Jesuitic ethics did not indeed harmonize
with the moral consciousness of the ancient church; its representatives
were also well aware of this, and they hesitated not to admit that they
did not recognize ancient church tradition as a criterion for morality,
but wished rather to lay the foundations for a new tradition.
The chief means used for the purpose of lightening moral duty was the
so-called moral probabilism, namely, the principle that in
morally-doubtful cases the authority of a few eminent church-teachers,
or also even of a single one (if he is a doctor gravis et probus),
suffices to furnish a sententia probabilis as to a moral course of
action, and hence to justify the performing of it, even if the opinion
followed were per se false; nay, according to some, even if this
teacher himself had declared it as only morally possible, without
really approving of it. Hence, as soon as I can hunt up for an action
which seems to me of doubtful propriety, or even positively wrong, a
consenting opinion of an ecclesiastical authority (and of course it is
best if I find it among the Jesuit doctors themselves), then am I
perfectly screened by the same; [170] in which connection it is to be
taken into account that there is scarcely any one moral question which
is not answered by different doctors in an entirely contrary sense.
That thus the most opposite manners of action may be equally readily
justified, the Jesuits knew very well; and Escobar even found, in the
actual variety of views as to the moral, an amazing trace of Divine
Providence, inasmuch as thereby the yoke of Christ is in so agreeable a
manner rendered easy. [171] Although probabilism was not so
immoderately extended by all the Jesuits, nevertheless it was the
decidedly dominant teaching; and when the general of the order,
Gonzales, in 1694, disapproved of it, many were minded to regard him as
thereby deposed because of heresy, and only the protection of the Pope
saved him. [172]
Probabilism is not a merely fortuitously discovered expedient, but it
is in fact an almost inevitable consequence of the historical essence
of Jesuitism. As the order itself arose neither on the basis of
Scripture nor of ancient church-tradition, but sprang absolutely from
the daring inventive power of a single man breaking through the limits
of ecclesiastical actuality, hence it is not at all unnatural that it
should make the authority of a single spiritually preeminent man its
highest determining power, and subordinate to this the historical,
objective form of the moral consciousness. When the learned moralists
came to be regarded as the determining authority in morals, then the
Jesuits were the masters of the world, for they were themselves the
most excellent doctors. Though they absolved the inquirer from so many
burdensome chains of commanding duty, though they led him in the
selection between opposed authorities to a subjective discretion of
decision, yet at least this point was reached, that he recognized the
Jesuit priests as his liberating masters. The doctrine of probabilism
can by no means be explained as a simple sequence of the Romish
tradition-principle; for here the deciding element is not the authority
of the church, but simply individual teachers and in fact not, the
majority of authorities, but it is expressly permitted to follow [173]
the lesser authority in face of the greater, and to select among
several authorities the one which best pleases, even if it be the less
probable one. [174] Hence also the father-confessor is not at liberty,
as against the probable opinions of those who confess to him, to appeal
to other and higher authorities, but he must admit the former even
should he hold them for entirely false, [175] and a doctor, when asked
for moral advice needs not to impart the same exclusively according to
his own judgment, but may also suggest the judgment of another though
contradictory to his own, in case it is more favorable to, or more
desired by, the inquirer (si forte haec illi favorabilior seu
exoptatior sit); hence he may give to different persons a directly
contrary answer to the same question, "only he must in this matter use
discretion and prudence." [176] Many go so far as to maintain that I
not only need not follow the opinion most probable to me, but that I
may even follow that one of which I hold only that it is probable that
it may be probable (Tamburini).--But how is the doctrine of probability
to be reconciled with the Catholic doctrine that the assent of the
church is necessary in order that any course of action may be
ecclesiastically valid? Bauny gives the answer: All that doctors teach
in printed books has, in fact, the assent and approval of the church,
provided that the church has not expressly declared it as invalid.
Though probabilism per se, as a mere formal principle, endangers
morality in a high degree, substituting in the place of the moral
conscience individual and arbitrary authority, and rocking the soul
into false security, still it were possible that the danger of this
principle should not actually realize itself, in that it might be
presupposed that the theological authorities would, in all essential
moral thoughts, harmonize with each other and with the Scriptures, and
would show some difference only in regard to more external, unimportant
questions. In this case the erroneousness of the formal principle would
in some measure be remedied by the correctness of the material
contents. The question rises therefore: What do the doctors who are
presented as moral oracles, positively teach as to the moral?
One would be largely deceived were one to expect to find in the moral
writings in question merely the loose world-morality of moral
indifference, selfishness, and pleasure-seeking; on the contrary, they
often present anxiously, minute and strict prescriptions, especially in
churchly relations, so that the evangelical liberty of a Christian man
would feel itself thereby in many respects largely cramped. One must
here distinguish, however, between the ordinary popular morality--as it
were, for home use, and indeed also for show--and the higher morality
which relates to the fundamental purposes of the Jesuit order, that is,
to the furtherance of the Romish church, and which is chiefly practiced
by the great, in church and state, and hence also by the Jesuits
themselves.--To the semi-Pelagianizing explaining-away of the sinful
corruption of human nature, corresponds, on the other hand, a lowering
of the moral requirements made of man; for the natural man, downy
cushions are spread. We are not obligated to love God throughout our
whole life, in the full sense of the word, nor even every five years,
but more especially only toward the close of life. [177] In fact, the
French Jesuit Sirmond denies the obligation of love to God on the
whole; it is sufficient if we fulfill the other commandments and do not
hate God; [178] and he found in his Order warm concurrence. So also is
the love of neighbor, and especially of enemies, lowered to a degree
corresponding to anti-Christian, heathen ways of thinking. And even the
duties of children are placed lower than is the case among the Chinese.
The fourth commandment is fulfilled by the fact that one shows due
honor to his parents, though without loving them; for love is not
required in the commandment. To be ashamed of one's parents, to banish
them from one's presence, to treat them as strangers and the like, is
not a severe sin; but, on the contrary, it is allowable for the son to
accuse his father of heresy before the Inquisition (Busenbaum), and
according to a majority of the Jesuits, as also in the opinion of
Diana, he is obligated thereto; and the same holds true of brothers and
sisters, and of consorts. [179] Some of them declare it even as
allowable that a son should wish his father's death, or should rejoice
at the occurrence of his death, because he has now the happiness of
coming into his inheritance (Tamburini, Vasquez), or that a mother
should wish the death of her daughter, in case the latter is ugly
(Azorius). Malignant revenge is indeed forbidden, but not the taking
revenge in vindication of one's honor.
In respect to moral imputation and condemnation, most of the teachers
make--in view of rendering moral desert easy--the remarkable
distinction, that the action answering to the divine law is good and
meritorious as such, without it being requisite thereto that the
intention should be good; and that, on the contrary, sin exists only
where there is really an intention of sinning. Hence if the intention
is a good one, that is, promotive of the weal of the church, then the
act which serves to its carrying-out cannot be sinful; and there can be
a mortal sin only where the person in the moment of the act had the
definite intention of doing evil, and a perfect knowledge of the same.
But passion and evil habit becloud one's knowledge and hence render the
sin venial, as does also weighty evil example; [180] and a probable
opinion entirely excuses even a mortal sin. In an unimportant matter
even the transgression of a divine law is not a mortal sin. Ignorance
of the law excuses the mortal sin; and inveterate ignorance, the
father-confessor may overlook in silence. Repentance over a committed
sin is indeed necessary to the forgiveness of the same, but a very
slight degree of repentance suffices, or even a desire to have
repentance, or the fear of eternal punishment; and, in case of repeated
sins, it is enough to feel repentance for only one of them, provided
that all are confessed; nay, it even suffices that I should feel
pained, not because of the sin, but because of its bad consequences, e.
g., disease, dishonor; [181] it is therefore not to be wondered at when
some of the doctors assert, in contradiction to others, that it is
sufficient in order to the obtaining of absolution that we feel a
regret at our lack of repentance (Sa, Navarra). An actual bettering of
one's life needs not to follow immediately upon repentance, as in fact
the habit of sinning renders the sin itself venial. Venial sins (and in
the eyes of the Jesuits this field is uncommonly large) need not to be
confessed, and it is not even necessary, in connection with the
sacrament of penance, to repent of them, and to form a resolution to
avoid them.
Not undeserved is the notoriety of the chapters in Jesuitical ethics on
falsehood, on the sexual sin, and on murder. One may intentionally use
ambiguous words in one sense though knowing that the hearer understands
him otherwise; and one may for a legitimate end, e. g., for
self-defense, or to protect one's family, or to practice a virtue,
utter words, which, as uttered, are entirely false, and which express
the true sense (which may be the opposite to the sense really
expressed) only through mental additions restrictio s. reservatio
mentalis); of such cases the moralists abound in remarkable
illustrations; [182] e. g., when some one wishes to borrow something of
me which I do not like to let him have, I am at liberty to say, "I have
it not," namely, by adding mentally, "in order to give it to thee;" if
some one asks of me something which I do not wish to tell, I am at
liberty to answer, "I know it not," namely, as obligated to communicate
it; if I am asked as to a crime of which I am the sole witness, I am at
liberty to say, "I know it not," mentally adding, "as a thing publicly
known;" if I have hidden away a quantity of provision of which I have
need, then I may swear before the court, "I have nothing," mentally
adding, "which I am bound to disclose." A priest threatened with death
may, without real intentio, that is, merely in appearance, pronounce
absolution, administer sacraments, etc. An adulterous wife, when
questioned by her husband, may swear that she did not commit adultery,
adding mentally: "on this or that day," or "in order to reveal it to
thee." He who comes from a scene of pestilence, but is convinced that
he is not infected, may swear that he does not come from such a place.
When a poor debtor is pressed by a hard creditor, he may swear before
the court that he owes nothing to the other, in that he adds mentally,
"in order to pay it right away." I may deny, before the court, every
trespass or crime which has any manner of excuse, namely, by adding
mentally, "as a crime." Is, qui ex necessitate vel aliqua utilitate
offert se ad jurandum nemine petente, potest uti amphibologiis, nam
habet justam causam iis utendi (Sanchez, Diana). In general, all such
untruths are allowed EX JUSTA CAUSA, namely, quando id necessario est,
vel utile ad salutem corporis, honoris aut rerum familiarum, or when an
improper question is addressed to us; on the contrary, to swear falsely
without a good reason is a mortal sin (Diana); this is--though not in
express words yet certainly in sense--the maxim which is disavowed by
the more recent Jesuits, namely, that the end sanctifies the means. A
promise obligates to its fulfillment only when one actually had, at the
time of promising, the intention of fulfilling it. [183] Hence an oath
is binding only when one meant it earnestly; otherwise it is to be
regarded as a mere blame-worthy indeed, though not obligating, piece of
trifling (Sanchez, Busenbaum, Escobar, Less, Diana), and it obligates
only in the sense in which, by mental reservations, it was intended,
and not in that in which, by its form of expression, it would have to
be understood by the other; and knowingly to mislead any one into a
false oath, who, however, acts in good faith, is no sin, since in fact
he who unknowingly swears falsely does no evil thereby; [184] to swear
falsely from bad habit, is only a venial sin. If any one swears that he
will never drink wine, then he seriously sins only when he drinks much,
but not when he drinks but little (Escobar). He who swears before a
court that he will tell all that he knows, is not bound to tell that
which he alone knows (Less). [185]
The sexual relations are discussed by the Jesuits in a so
immorally-detailed circumstantiality that the laxity of moral judgment
(elsewhere without parallel) is rendered thereby all the more
pernicious and condemnable. [186] A maiden who has committed unchastity
for the first time is not required, even when she is, as yet, under the
oversight of her parents, to give, in making her confession, this
circumstance, namely, that it is the first and hence more serious case,
for the freely consenting virgin does a wrong neither to herself nor to
her parents, inasmuch as she has discretionary power over her virginal
purity. (Quum sit domina sua integritatis virginalis). [187] For all
possible kinds of unchastity, apologies and excuses are invented; [188]
and Tamburini even fixes with great exactness the taxes for public
women. Tile discussions of the moralists on these subjects are, in many
respects, of so indelicate a character, that the judgment of the
Episcopal censor, printed in the work of Sanchez, (t. 2.), namely,
summa voluptate perlegi, sounds almost too naive.--Under the head of
murder, the Jesuits had the task of accommodating themselves to the
then prevalent moral notions of the South-European nations, and the
result of their labors was an ingeniously constructed code of murder.
[189] The murdering of a person, even of an innocent one, may under
circumstances be allowable, not indeed simply in case of self-defense,
but also in other cases,--for example, in case of severe insult,
inasmuch as the insulted one would otherwise pass as dishonored; and
even when the insulted one is a monk or priest, he may, according to
some authorities, kill his opposer (Escobar i, c. 3, Less, and others);
and several Jesuits directly maintained that any one, even a priest or
monk, is entitled to anticipate an intended slander or false accusation
by secret murder; for this would not amount to murder, but simply to
self-defense; [190] and this was expressly applied to the case where a
monk should have reason to fear the disclosures of his mistress. When a
knight, in fleeing from the enemy, cannot otherwise rescue himself than
by riding over an infant child or a beggar, then is the killing of
these innocent persons allowable, save only in case that the child is
not as yet baptized (Escobar, c. 3, 52),--which would apparently be
rather difficult for the knight to know. Killing in self-defense is
allowable even where the self-defender is caught in a crime, and that,
too, where the killing is beforehand intended, e. g., when he who is
caught in adultery kills the injured husband (Escobar i, 7, c. 2, 5,
13; 3, 35; i, 8, n. 61). A woman may stiletto her husband when she
knows definitely that this same fate threatens her from him, and when
she knows no other escape (Less). He who has secretly committed
adultery may kill the single witness thereof who is on the point of
accusing him, for this witness is not under obligation to make this
accusation; however, adds the Jesuit, civil law has unfortunately not
assented to this probable opinion (Escobar i, 7, n. 39). He who without
his own fault is required to accept, or to challenge to, a duel, does
wisely to put his opponent out of the way by secret murder, for thereby
he protects himself from the assault, and his opponent from a serious
sin. [191] Escobar is unwilling to see him who murders his enemy
secretly shut out, just like a common murderer, from the right of
asylum (6, 4, n. 26). According to some teachers--the majority,
however, think otherwise--a pregnant maiden may procure an abortion in
order to escape the shame. [192] According to Azor, a physician may
administer a less certainly effectual medicine although he has with him
a more certain one, and even when it is more probable that the less
effectual one may do harm; for he has after all some probability on his
side. [193] Tamburini justifies the castration of singers for the
service of the church. The doctrine--notorious in church-history--of
the justifiableness of tyrant-murder, we need only mention in passing,
as well as also the almost demagogic doctrine of the merely-relatively
valid and purely human right of princes, and of the right to disobey
law on the part of the people, as being themselves sovereign. [194] In
this political respect is especially notorious the work of the Spanish
Jesuit, Mariana, (De rege. 1598, 1605), according to which, a king who
oppresses religion or violates the laws of the state may be killed by
any of his subjects, openly or by poison; the murderer, even if his
attempt fails, renders himself meritorious in the eyes of God and man,
and wins immortal renown (comp. the view of John of Salisbury, S: 34).
It is chiefly these revolutionary doctrines that brought the order to
its fall; with its other moral views the secular world could have put
up with much better grace.
The maxims of the Jesuits disseminated themselves like an infectious
disease far beyond the circle of their own Order, as is shown by the
comprehensive works of the already mentioned Sicilian, Antony Diana
(clericus regularis), [195] who taught, under the express approbatio of
his ecclesiastical superiors, and also of the Jesuits, the doctrine of
probabilism in its worst forms. One may act according to a probable
opinion and disregard the more probable one; man is not under
obligation to follow the more perfect and the more certain, but it
suffices to follow simply the certain and perfect; it would be an
unendurable burden were one required to hunt out the more probable
opinions; [196] the most of the Jesuits taught the same thing. In
relation to murder, he teaches like Escobar; I am at liberty to kill
even him who assails my honor, if my honor cannot otherwise be rescued.
[197] When some one has resolved upon a great sin, then one is at
liberty to recommend to him a lesser one, because such advice does not
relate absolutely to an evil, but to a good, namely, the avoiding of
the worse; for example, if I cannot otherwise dissuade a person from an
intended adultery than recommending to him fornication instead thereof,
then it is allowable to recommend this to him, not, however, in so far
as it is a sin, but in so far as it prevents the sin of adultery; Diana
appeals in this connection to many like-judging Jesuit doctors. [198]
If a priest commissions Peter to kill Caius, who is weaker than Peter,
but nevertheless Peter comes out second best and gets killed himself,
still the priest incurs no guilt, and may continue in the
administration of his office. [199] He who resolves upon committing all
possible venial sins, does not thereby involve himself in any mortal
sin [200] He who ex aliqua justa causa rents a house to another for
purposes of prostitution, commits no sin. [201] To eat human flesh, in
case of necessity, he holds with the majority of the Jesuits, as
allowable. [202] He who in virtue of a promise of marriage induces a
maiden to yield to him, is not bound by his promise, in case he is of
higher rank or richer than she, or in case he can persuade himself that
she will not take his promise in serious earnest. [203] Marriage
between brother and sister can be made legitimate by Papal
dispensation. [204] -- In such moral perversity of view Diana seems
only to have been surpassed by the Spanish Netherlander Cistercian,
Lobkowitz, [205] who, in his skepticism, entirely breaks down the moral
consciousness, and declares that nothing is evil per se, but only
because it is positively forbidden; hence God can dispense even from
all the commandments (comp. the views of Duns Scotus, S: 34),--can, e.
g., allow whoredom and other like sins, for none of these are evil per
se. Monks and priests are at liberty to kill the female misused by
them, when they fear, on her account, for their honor. This writer
declares himself expressly and decidedly in favor of the views of the
Jesuits.--Also the Franciscan order became infected with the maxims of
the Jesuits, as is proved by the very voluminous work of Barthol.
Mastrius de Mandula, [206] which was published under the express
sanction of the officers of the order, and who justifies restrictiones
mentales even in oaths, [207] and also the murder of tyrants, [208] the
murders of the slanderers of an important person, castration and
similar things, [209] as well as also probabilism.
The moral system of the Jesuits is not, strictly speaking, that of the
Romish church; many of their more extreme maxims the church has
condemned, and the more recent Jesuits themselves find it advisable no
longer fully to avow their former principles. Nevertheless Jesuitism,
together with its system of morals, is the ultimate consequential goal
of the church in its turning-aside from the Gospel, just as (though in
other respects widely different therefrom) Talmudism was the necessary
goal of Judaism in its rejection of the Saviour. The error consists in
the placing of human discretion and authority in the stead of the
unconditionally valid, revealed will of God. Even as earlier
Catholicism had intensified the divine command by self-invented,
ascetic work-holiness into a seemingly greater severity,--had aimed at
a higher moral perfection than that required by God,--so Jesuitism with
like presumption lowered the moral law, out of consideration to
temporal relations, to a merest minimum requirement,--contented itself
with a much lower moral perfection than the divine law calls for, and
sought out cunning means for lightening even this minimum. Jesuitical
ethics is the opposite pole of monastic ethics; what the latter
requires too much, the former requires too little. Monastic morality
sought to win God for the sinful world; Jesuitical morality seeks to
win the sinful world, not indeed for God, but at least for the church.
Monasticism said to God, though not in an evangelical sense: "if I have
only thee, then I ask for nothing else in heaven or earth;" Jesuitism
says about the same thing, but says it to the world, and particularly
to the distinguished and powerful. The former turns away in indignant
contempt from the worldly life, because the world is immersed in sin;
the latter generously receives the same into itself, and turns
attention away from guilt, by denying it. It is true, the Jesuits
represent also a monastic Order, but this order is only a means to an
end, and resembles the other nobler orders about as much as wily Renard
resembles the pious Pilgrim; and the well-known hostility of the older
orders to this brilliantly rising new one, was not mere jealousy, but a
very natural, and, for the most part. moral protest against the spirit
of the same.
Other casuists are: Jacobus `a Graffiis, a Benedictine (Consiliorum s.
respons. cas. consc. 1610, 2, 4to.); Pontas of Paris (Examen general de
conscience, 1728; Latin, 1731, 8 fol., alphabetical); the French bishop
Genettus (ob. 1702, Theologie morale; also in Latin, 1706, 2, 4to.,
earnest and rigid); the Dominican Perazzo, in his Thomisticus
ecclesiastes (1700, 3 fol.), digested the ethics of Thomas Aquinas into
an alphabetical register; Malder of Antwerp treated it more
systematically (De virtutibus theologicis, 1616).
In a more systematic form, a purer Christian spirit, and, in many
respects, opposed to Jesuitical views, and corresponding rather to
Mediaeval ethics, is the moral treatise of the French bishop Godeau
(1709); Natalis Alexander (1693) treated the same subject in a similar
spirit, in connection with dogmatics.
__________________________________________________________________
[165] Universa philosophia moribus, Venet. 1583; Frkf., 1595, 1629.
[166] Perrault: Morale des Jes., 1667, 3t.; Ellendorf: Die Moral und
Politik des Jesuiten, 1840--not sufficiently scientific; Pragm. Gesch.
d. Moenschsorden, 1770, vols. 9 and 10.
[167] Genuae, 1592? 1602; Antv. 1607, 1612, 1614, 1617, 3 fol.; Norimb.
1706; the first edition has become rare; in the later editions, after
1612, the smuttiest passages are omitted or modified.
[168] Rewritten and enlarged by Lacroix, 1710, 9t., Col. 1729, 2 fol.,
and frequently.
[169] Filliucci: Moral. quaest., I, trac. 6 c. 7; Escobar: Liber th.,
VII, 4 c. 7 (especially n. 181, 182), comp. Ellendorf, 263 ssq., 312
ssq.
[170] Laymann: Theol. mor. 1625, i, p. 9; Escobar: Liber h., prooem.,
exam. 3; Bresser: De consc. iii, c. 1 sq., and in almost all the
others.
[171] Quia ex opinionum varietate jugum Christi suavita sustinetur
(Univ. theol. mor., t. i, lib. 2, 1, c. 2 in Crome, x, 182.)
[172] Wolf: Gesch. d. Jesuit., 1, 173.
[173] Escobar: Th. mor., prooeem., iii, n. 9, and many others.
[174] Sanchez: Op. mor., i, 9, n. 12 sqq., n. 24.
[175] Escobar: Th. mor. prooem., iii, n. 27; Laymann, i, p. 12; so also
Diana: Resol. mor., ii, tract., 13,11 sqq., Antv., 1637; Summa, 1652,
p. 216.
[176] Laymann, i, p. 11.
[177] Escobar: i, 2, n. 7 sqq.; v, 4, n. 1 sqq.
[178] Defensio virtutis, i, 1.
[179] Diana: Resol. mor. i, tract., 4, 4, 5.
[180] E. g., Laymann: i, 2, c. 3; i, 9, 3; Escob.: i, 3, n. 28;
Conseuetudo absque advertentia letale peccatum non facit.
[181] Escobar: Tr. 7, 4, c. 7.
[182] Sanchez: Opus mor., iii, 6, 12 sqq.; Summa: i, 3, 6; Diana: ii,
tr. 15, 25 sqq.; iii, tr. 6, 30, where many cases are cited and
approved; Ellendorf: pp. 42 sqq., 52 sqq., 124 sqq., 157 sqq.; Crome:
x, 142 sqq.
[183] Escobar: iii, 3, n. 48.
[184] Ibid., i, 3, n. 31.
[185] Compare Diana: iii, t. 5,100 sqq.
[186] Escobar: i, 8; v, 2; Busenbaum: iii, 4; especially Sanchez; De
matrim.; so also Diana; comp. Ellendorf: 30 sqq., 95 sqq., 288 sqq.,
331 sqq.
[187] Escobar: Liber, etc., princ. ii, n. 41; so also Bauny.
[188] E. g., Diana: ii, t. 16, 54; 17, 62 ssq.; iii, 5, 87 sqq.; iv, 4,
36, 37,--in the spirit of many of the Jesuits.
[189] Especially Escobar: i, 7; comp. Ellendorf: 72 sqq.
[190] Sanchez: Summa, t. i, 2, 39, 7; Amicus: De jure et justitia, v,
sec. 7, 118; comp. Diana: iii, tr. 5, 97, ed. Antv. 1637.
[191] Sanchez: Opus mor. ii, 39, 7.
[192] Crome, x, 229; Escobar, i, 7, n. 59, 64.
[193] In Escobar: Princ. iii, n. 25,--who, however, himself disapproves
thereof.
[194] Perrault, ii, 304 sqq.; Staeudlin, 503; Ellendorf, 360 sqq.
[195] Resolutiones morales, Antv., 1629-37, 4 fol., Lugd. 1667, Venet.,
1728.
[196] Res. mor., Antv., 1637, ii, tract. 13; iv, tr. 3; Summa, 1652, p.
214.
[197] Ibid., iii, 5, 90; Summa, pp. 210, 212.
[198] Res. mor., Antv., 1637, iii, tract. 5, 37.
[199] Ibid., ii, tract. 15, 17.
[200] Ibid., iii, tr. 6, 24.
[201] Ibid., iii, tr. 6, 45.
[202] Ibid., 6, 48.
[203] Resol. mor., Antv., iii, 6, 81; in the spirit of Sanchez and
Less.
[204] Ibid., iv, tr., 4, 94; sanctioned by several Jesuits.
[205] Theol. mor., 1645, 1652; the work itself I have not been able to
find; comp. Perrault: i, 331 sqq.
[206] Ibid., 1626.
[207] Disp., xi, 52, 171, 172, 183, (ed. Ven. 1723.)
[208] Ibid., viii, 27.
[209] Ibid., viii, 25, 28; xi, 110 sqq.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XXXIX.
In striking antithesis to the morals of the Jesuits, stand the
teachings of the Augustine-inspired Jansenists, who, in opposition to
the subjectively-individual character of the Jesuitical system, hold
fast to the immutable objectivity of the moral law, and teach the
latter in a very rigid manner, much resembling that of Calvinists; but
yet because of their leaning upon the earlier mysticism of the church
they come short of carrying fully out the Reformatory principle.--The
mystical theology--present in Jansenism only as a co-ordinate
element--perpetuated itself in the Romish church, in natural antagonism
to the cold casuistic morality of the Jesuits, but rather in a
popularly devotional than in a scientific form, and rose, in the
Quietism of Molinos, to a one-sided turning-aside from all vigorous
moral activity, while Fenelon shaped a modified and moderated mysticism
into a noble, moral system of devout contemplation.
Jansen of Louvain (afterward bishop of Ypres), presses, in his
Augustinus (1640), the doctrine of Augustine against the semi-Pelagian
system of the Jesuits, and occasioned thereby a powerful theological
movement which led almost to schism, and which demonstrated again by
historical results that even the most rigid teaching of predestination
brings about higher moral views than the doctrine of Pelagianism and
semi-Pelagianism,--and for this simple reason, that, in the former
system God is brought absolutely into the fore-ground, while, in the
latter, the individual subject is put forward into a false position.
Love to God and to his will is the essence of all morality; where God
is not loved in an action, there the action is not moral; mere love to
created things is sinful; but our love to God is poured out into our
hearts by God himself, and hence stands in need of grace, which
inclines the will directly and irresistibly to the working of the good.
The four chief virtues and the three theological virtues, as adopted
from Augustine, are only different manners of loving God; God is their
ultimate goal, as also their source; his gracious working and our love,
both inseparably united, constitute their impelling power; fear does
indeed bring about order, but not virtue.--Although the book of Jansen
was' burned at Rome, and forbidden by Papal bulls, still his opinions
continued to disseminate themselves in the Netherlands and in France,
and bade defiance to Jesuitism. The writings of Arnauld, Pascal,
Nicole, Quesnel, developed the moral principles of Jansen still
further, and though they in fact remained far remote from evangelical
purity of faith, and even defended as a high virtue the afflicting of
the body by fasting and other severe acts of penance, even to
self-mortification, still they were thoroughly in earnest for moral
purity,--required complete moral self-denial out of love of God, and
placed the moral worth of all actions, and even of their ascetic
practices, essentially in the disposition of the heart; and their
ground-principles were definite and clear, and proof against all
sophistry. [210] Arnauld assailed effectually the ethics of the
Jesuits. Pascal's (ob. 1662) "Pensees" (1669 and later), consisting of
thoughts on religion without any very close connection, attained to a
very wide circulation. That the presentation of these quite plain
thoughts could produce so great an impression, is evidence of how
deeply had sunk the Christian life, and of how great was the necessity
of reformation. Peter Nicole (ob. 1695) worked effectually, through his
numerous popular and essentially Scripture-inspired writings on special
moral topics, toward a purer form of ethics; [211] and this was done in
still wider circles by Quesnel's "Moral Reflections" (at first in 1671,
on the Four Gospels, afterward on the entire New Testament) which were
affected with a slight tinge of mysticism;--(Sainte-Beuve:
"Resolutions," etc., 1689, 3, 4to.). The open or underhanded opposition
of the Jesuits to these writings simply awakened the attention of the
people all the more to the great difference between the parties, and
that, too, not to the advantage of the Jesuits.--The chief strength of
Jansenism lay in its opposition to the Jesuits; its own positive
contents, as an emphasizing of the practical phase of Augustinianism,
was not consequentially carried out; it was not able to disenthrall
itself from the unevangelical ground-thoughts of the corrupted church,
but halted at half-ways; and hence though it had a wide-reaching, it
did not have a permanent and profound, influence. Discarding the system
of external work-holiness and insisting on the inner element of the
moral life, it yet did not clearly and purely embrace the evangelical
thought of faith, which first lays hold on grace and then freely
carries out the life of grace; but it regarded morality not merely as
an evidence of salvation, but also, though without merit in itself, as
a means of salvation; hence its insisting on painfully-anxious ascetic
practices.
The mystical current of ethics, with which the Jansenists always
manifested a sympathy, was represented by Francis de Sales (bishop of
Geneva, ob. 1622, and subsequently canonized) in several works; [212]
by Vergier (abbot of St. Cyr, ob. 1643) a Jansenist, who was already
powerfully working in the direction of Quietism, and who encouraged the
severest, and even cruel, self-mortifications; [213] and by Cardinal
Bonaa (ob. 1674.) [214] Most remarkable, however, though quite
consequential, was the manner in which mysticism was transformed into
Quietism [215] by the Spaniard, Michael Molinos (afterward in Rome,)
whose work entitled "Spiritual Guide," originally (1675) in Spanish,
soon disseminated itself throughout Romish Europe. [216] As the goal of
morality is union with God through an entire turning away from the
creature, hence true morality must manifest itself, not in acting in
the outer world, but in turning away from it. Such is the doctrine
which Molinos derives from his favorites among the earlier mystics,
from Dionysius the Areopagite down. In contemplation, in the path of
faith, in immediate spiritual vision of God, without the intervention
of an inferential process of thought, the soul already possesses
eternal truth. True vision, inward rest and inward composure,--the
remaining silent in the presence of God, the beholding of God without
figure or form, and without distinguishing between his attributes, as
the absolutely One,--all this is not a self-acquired active state, but
a passive one imparted by God himself to the soul, so that consequently
God alone works in man, and the soul itself remains m6tionless and
inactive,--yields itself entirely to the solely-working divine
activity,--is entirely united with God; this is the true, pure manner
of prayer, which cannot be uttered in words, but is a holy
keeping-silence of the soul. Satiated in this union with God the soul
is entirely filled with the divine, and hates all worldly
things,--feels a repugnance to every thing earthly, forgets every thing
created, is divested, in its inner solitude, of all affections and
thoughts, of all inclinations and all creature-will,--withdraws itself
into its most innermost depths, and enjoys, in its total
self-forgetfulness (entirely merged into God), perfect inner rest, and
holy peace; self-mortification and self-denial are but disciplinary
helps for beginners in the acquiring of salvation, but do not
themselves lead to perfection; this is attained only through sinking
into one's own nothingness, through 'self-annihilation," through the
putting on of, and becoming united with, God.--Molinos, though at first
favored by the Pope, was afterward delivered over, by the influence of
the Jesuits, to the Inquisition, and was required to disavow his
doctrines (1687), and died in prison. Many of the propositions
condemned were only inferences drawn from his writings, though not
expressly taught by himself.--In spite of this and other persecutions,
mysticism still continued to exist, also in its quietistic form, in the
Latin nations. (Madam Bouvier de la Mothe Guion--ob. 1717--represented
it in numerous writings, mostly published by Poiret, in. which she
sometimes goes in fervent mystical depth of love, even beyond
Molinos,--the out-gush of a glowingly enthusiastic womanly
heart.)--Fenelon, archbishop of Cambray, favored the doctrine of Madame
Guion, and endeavored by moderating her quietistic views to conjure the
opposition; and his writings, which portray in simple, noble eloquence
the pious life of the Christian, and keep free from the extremes of
one-sided mysticism, and uniformly place love to God in the foreground
as the essence of the moral, offer and propose, in opposition to the
pettifogging dialectics of Jesuitical morality, the Christian
spirituality of the heart. His mystical masterpiece (Explication des
Maxims des Saintes, 1697, and often subsequently) was condemned by the
Pope and proscribed; Fenelon yielded.
__________________________________________________________________
[210] Comp. Reuchlin: Geschichte von Portroyal, 1839, and the same
author's Pascals Leben, 1840,--neither work entirely unprejudiced.
[211] Kirchenhistor. Archiv. v. Staeudlin, etc., 1824, 1, 127.
[212] Oeuvres, Paris, 1821, 16 t., 1834.
[213] Opp. theol., 1642, 1653.
[214] Manuductio ad coelum, 1664, and frequently; Opp. Antv., 1673,
1739.
[215] Walch: Einl. in d. Rel. streit. ausser. d. ev. K., 1724, ii, p.
982; Staeudlin u. Tschirner: Archiv., i, 2, 175.
[216] Walch: Einl. in d. Rel. streit. ausser. d. ev. K., 1724, ii, p.
982; Staeudlin u. Tschirner: Archiv., i, 2, 175.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XL.
Independently of the Reformation,--because averse to Christianity
itself, and standing rather in connection with the already previously
existing breaking-loose from the evangelically-moral consciousness
which showed itself, as godlessness on the one hand, and as humanism on
the other,--there was developed, in antithesis to the Christian
religion and to Mediaeval philosophy (as also in antithesis to the
riper Greek philosophy, and consequently to the historical spirit in
general) an essentially new philosophical movement, which, while moving
forward under manifold modifications of form, gradually won a
progressively greater influence on theology, and in fact chiefly also
on theological ethics, leading the same astray, on the one hand, into
deep-reaching errors, but also, on the other (and in fact because of
these errors) bringing it to a riper self-examination and to a clearer
self-consciousness. Showing a preference,--in contrast to the precedent
of the better form of scholasticism,--to those ancient moralists who
already represented the decadence of Greek thought, namely, to the
Epicureans, the Stoics, and the Skeptics, or indeed also, merely in a
general way, to the so-called humanistic spirit of antiquity,--this
movement (which found favor especially in Italy and France, because of
the there-increasing demoralization of the higher classes), shows
itself at first, for the most part, simply in the form of general
maxims and sentiments, and attained only rarely to a more scientific
shape. Scarcely anywhere save in Germany did this current of thought
rise to scientific earnestness and philosophical development, and
thereby to a more substantial moral character. Spinoza broke off all
connection with ancient and Mediaeval philosophy, and developed a
consequential Pantheistic system, in which ethics assumes the form of
an objective describing of the absolutely unfree, purely
mechanically-conceived moral life, as determined with unconditional
nature-necessity by the life of the universe, although, because of the
unhistorical originality of his manner of thinking, he exerted but
little influence upon his (for this element, yet unreceptive) age. All
the greater, however, became the influence of the philosophy of
Leibnitz, representing as it did a world-theory the opposite of that of
Spinoza, and placing itself rigidly on monotheistic ground, and
standing in a much closer connection with history;--especially was this
influence extended through the labors of his somewhat independent
disciple, Christian Wolf, who created a very detailed and morally
earnest system of ethics, essentially under the form of the doctrine of
duties, which, as a purely philosophical opposition-movement to the
above-mentioned non-Christian and anti-Christian current, attained to a
not undeserved influence on Christian ethics in Germany, and gave rise
in Crusius to an evangelically deeper, though not philosophically
carried-out, development of moral science.
It is utterly incorrect and anti-historical to deduce the collective,
and (as some have done) even the anti-Christian philosophy of modern
times from the Reformation, or even to regard it as standing in any
close connection therewith. The essence of the Reformation is not the
freeing of the individual subject from all objective authority.
Historically, we are forced to hold fast to the fact that both before,
and during, and after, the time of the Reformation, there were
prevailing still other entirely different spiritual influences than the
religiously-evangelical one,--influences which were in part entirely
independent of the Reformation and of its spirit, nay, even utterly
opposed thereto, and in part, though occasioned in their development by
the movement of thought going out from the Reformation, were yet not
caused thereby. The renewed cultivation of ancient classical
literature, especially of the belletristic as distinguished from the
philosophy of Plato and Aristotle, played, in the Reformation-movement,
only a very subordinate and essentially negative role, namely, in that
it undermined the credit of scholasticism. The deep earnestness of the
religious life in the evangelical church, the required inward purity,
and the repentance of regeneration, consisted but illy with a love for
the exaltation of the natural man, as exhibited in Greek literature;
and it was much easier for humanism to find an undisturbed patronage
within the Romish church,--which, though indeed not theoretically
approving of the movement, had yet practically already long since
accorded it favor. Humanism was the name self-assumed by this movement,
which in antithesis to the Christian world-theory placed man, in his
natural development, into the fore-ground even of its moral
world-theory, and threw as far as possible into the back-ground his
need of redemption, and which had consequently in Christianity only a
scientific and esthetic interest. The unbelieving impiety which
prevailed widely in the Romish church of that age, and which found its
way even into the Papal chair, had a much more lively sympathy for
heathen literature than the evangelical church. The Pelagian character
of humanism stood in fact nearer to the view of the Romish church than
to that of the evangelical. Luther turned the unevangelical Erasmus
indignantly away; Rome offered him a cardinal's hat.
It was quite natural, although it had nothing at all to do with the
evangelical Reformation, that there should now rise in opposition to
the one-sided idealism and spiritualism of scholasticism, an equally
one-sided realism and naturalism, which would naturally enough find
encouragement in the spirit of the age as weaned off from the Mediaeval
ideals of chivalry and poetry, and as immersed in material interests
and in the prose of politics. This thoroughly non-Christian
naturalistic tendency, which attained to a more spiritual content only
in the sphere of German thought, manifested from the very start a
decided aversion to all history, an aversion which constantly grew more
marked and positive. This anti-historical spirit began already to show
itself in the attempt to call again into life, in disregard to the
entire history of Christian thought, an ante-Christian world-theory,
namely, to effect a rehabilitation of the spirit of the heathen thought
of Greece and Rome. At a later period the movement went still
further,--broke even with the history of philosophy, pushing it
entirely aside even in its ancient form,--and the "philosophical"
century thought to display its strength in speaking disdainfully of the
spiritual products of a Plato and an Aristotle, and in regarding as
philosophers only third and fourth rate minds, such as Cicero, and in
basing itself, in boundless self-sufficiency, purely and simply upon
itself. It required all the pretension of the so-called philosophical
century to accept men, such as Rousseau and Voltaire (who had in fact
scarcely the faintest conception of solid philosophical thought-work),
as the greatest philosophers of the world's history. From the history
of thought, these men were unwilling to learn any thing, but solely
from nature; every one wanted to philosophize on his own
responsibility; every thing had to be entirely new; the new era wished
to owe nothing to the past, but contemptuously to tread it under foot;
and the reaction from this anti-historical, and hence unspiritual
tendency, begins only quite late--with Schelling. Now as the
Christianly-moral world-theory has a thoroughly historical character,
hence the history of this essentially naturalistic form of ethics
admits of no possible organic incorporation into the history of
Christian ethics; it simply moves side by side with the Christian
current,--breaks, especially at a later period, disturbing, confusing,
and perverting, into it,--but is with only slight exception not a
furthering element of its development.
Erasmus, who enters the ethical field in several treatises, [217] does
not as yet himself directly assail the Christianly-moral consciousness,
but only presents with prudent reserve the ethics of Plato and Cicero
as very closely related to Christian ethics, and mingles faint
Christian views with Grecian, and thereby reduces them to the level of
Pelagianism. His assaults on the moral abuses of the church are devoid
of Christian depth.--Pomponatius (of Padua and Bologna, ob. about
1525), [218] who, under the patronage of the Papal court, assailed the
doctrine of personal immortality, professed, in point of ethics, to
belong to the Stoic school,--taught absolute determinism, and presented
the Christian view only ambiguously along-side of the
heathen.--Lipsius, in the Netherlands (ob. 1606) went still further in
the exaltation of Stoicism, [219] though his opinions received no very
favorable commendation from his unbridled life and from his threefold
change of faith--Romish, Lutheran, Reformed, and then Romish again.--In
all essential features belongs here also the Socinian ethics of Crell,
which is in many respects kindred to the later Rationalistic system,
and presents (in a spirit of pure Pelagianism) Christian ethics simply
as improved Aristotelian ethics, and prefers the latter to the ethics
of the Old Testament. [220] --Agrippa of Nettesheim (of Cologne, ob.
1535), undermined, by a far-reaching skepticism, the certainty of all
moral consciousness, and explained this consciousness simply by mere
fortuitous habit and by fortuitously-adopted public manners; [221] his
magico-alchemistic superstitiousness forms the back-ground thereto.
(Giordano Bruno, the forerunner of Spinoza, produced no system of
ethics.)
Less influential upon his own age than upon recent times, was the
philosophy of Spinoza. His chief work, Ethica (1677), which appeared
only after his death, constitutes almost an entire philosophical
system, of which the ethical part proper forms indeed the largest but
not the most philosophical and important. This perspicuous and
mathematically-exact treatise presents not so strictly a speculative
development of the subject-matter as, rather, rational elucidations and
proofs of assumed propositions, among which, however, some very
important ones, which needed to be demonstrated, are presented merely
as axioms not needing proof, or are disguised in definitions. That the
Jewish, but also Judaism-rejecting, philosopher should feel himself
obliged also to ignore the history of the human spirit in general, was
naturally to be expected; his system (if we except the philosophy of
Descartes, which had likewise but little connection with earlier
philosophy, and whose monotheistical character Spinoza assails) has no
historical antecedents proper, but in fact begins anew the
philosophical thought-work from the very beginning, and develops the
Pantheistic world-theory so consequentially and undisguisedly as is
nowhere else to be found.--God, as the solely existing substance whose
two attributes are thought and extension, has not a world different
from and outside of himself, but is this world himself, as considered
simply under a particular aspect. All particular being is only a mode
of the existence of God; and all these modes are conditioned by the
absolute necessity of the divine life, and cannot be otherwise than as
they really are; all that is, is what, and as, it is, from necessity;
of every thing which is or takes place the principle holds absolutely
good: omnia sunt ex necessitate naturae divinae determinata. Hence this
holds good equally also of man, who is likewise a particular mode of
the being of God. When we say: "the human soul thinks something," this
is the same as to say: "God thinks," not however in so far as God is
infinite, but in so far as he constitutes the essence of the human
spirit. Hence human thought is just as necessarily determined as is all
being in general,--and hence knows per se, and necessarily, the
truth.--Now, thinking has two phases: knowing and willing. Of willing
the same holds good as of knowing, namely, it is absolutely determined
in all its activity. Every will-act has a definite cause, by which it
is absolutely determined. Willing can never contradict knowing, but is
the immediate and necessary product of the same, and is, strictly
speaking, identical therewith; willing is affirming, and non-willing is
denying. He who believes that he speaks, or keeps silent, or does any
thing else, by free choice, dreams with open eyes. Men delude
themselves into thinking that they are free in their volitions, only
because they are not conscious of the cause which absolutely determines
them; all that takes place through the activity of the will is
necessary, and therefore good. This doctrine renders the heart calm and
makes us happy; with it we have no longer any occasion for fear, for we
know that every thing takes place according to the everlasting decree
of God, with the same necessity as it follows from the idea of a
triangle, that its three angles are equal to two right angles,--teaches
us to hate, to despise, to mock no one,--teaches us unlimited
contentment (ii, prop. 48, 49).
All this is clear and consequential; but how can the existence of a
moral consciousness be reconciled therewith? How can any thing be
morally required or done, if every thing takes place with unconditional
necessity, and if will-freedom is only a false appearance? That there
can be no question of a moral command proper, of an "ought," Spinoza
himself virtually admits, inasmuch as he declares it his purpose to
speak of human actions just as if the matter in question were lines,
surfaces, and solids (iii. prooem.) We are active in so far as any
thing takes place within or without us, of which we are the perfect
cause; and the more we are active, and the less we are passive, so much
the more perfect are we. Even as all other things, so also the spirit
strives to retain and to enlarge its reality; its striving is its
willing; the end is not different from the cause--from the
unfree-acting impulse of nature; the passing-over to a higher reality
awakens the feeling of pleasure; the opposite, that of displeasure.
Pleasure in connection with the consciousness of its cause, is love;
the opposite is hate. For a real difference between good and evil there
is, in this world-theory, no place whatever. Neither good nor evil is a
reality in things themselves, but both are simply subjective
conceptions and notions, which we form by a comparison of things, and
are hence only relative relations having their basis not in things but
in ourselves,--are only modes of our thinking; for example, a
particular piece of music is good for a melancholic person, not good
for a different one, and is of no significancy at all for a deaf one;
hence it is per se neither good nor bad, (iv, praef:) Hence we cannot
say in general that any thing at all is good per se; it is only by
comparing one thing with another higher entity, or with a notion formed
by ourselves, that we find any thing to be good; good and evil are only
expressions of our subjective judgment as to that for or against which
we have a desire or an aversion. Per se, however, every thing is good,
because necessary; nothing is or transpires without God or against his
will; every thing is just as, according to eternal, divine destination
and necessity, it ought to be; hence the notion of evil is only a
limited and ungrounded manner of thinking on the part of our own
understanding,--is nothing on the part of God. Evil is in fact, even in
our own conception, only a negative something, a privation; but God
knows no mere negative something, hence God knows absolutely nothing of
evil (comp. the view of Erigena, S: 33), and hence there is in reality
no such thing as evil; for what God does not know does not exist, and
outside of God's thinking there is no other thinking. Moreover, were
evil or sin a real something, God would necessarily not only know it,
but also be the cause of it, for God is the substance and the cause of
all that is; and what is of God cannot be evil. Hence it is only a
false manner of looking at things, an imagination, when we find any
thing evil in the real world,--false, in that we bring things into
relation to ourselves, to our fortuitous feelings of pleasure and
displeasure, instead of contemplating them in their own nature; in and
of itself, and hence in truth, every thing real is good and perfect. In
all seemingly free action nothing else can take place than what results
with necessity from the existing circumstances of the acting subject.
Even the stings of conscience are a self-deception, and are nothing
other than a sadness or chagrin which we feel over some kind of a
failure. Let it not be objected to this, that if men do every thing
from necessity, and hence, also, sin from necessity, they cannot
consequently be blamed therefor, but that all men would then be
necessarily happy. On the contrary, man can be without guilt, and,
notwithstanding that, be also devoid of happiness. The horse is not
guilty for its not being man, and nevertheless it still remains a
horse; and he who is bitten by a mad-dog is also not guilty therefor,
and yet he goes mad; he who is blind was in fact destined in the
concatenation of beings to be blind and not seeing (Ep., 32, 34.) This
is surely the most wonderful justification of the moral order of the
universe which one could possibly fall upon; for, in fact, whence can
mad-dogs originate in an absolutely necessary and good world? If every
thing is necessary, and the entirely innocent can be made mad by
mad-dogs, this is evidently a very bad sort of world-order. And we must
ask: if all human thinking is the thinking of God himself, and is
absolutely necessary, how is there in fact possible any manner of false
thinking and imagining? If men really regard evil as real, then this
is, in fact, an error on the part of God himself, which our philosopher
should endeavor to account for; but if there is no evil, then there is
also no error, and the system thus entangles itself in its own meshes.
And when Spinoza makes error to be just as necessary as truth (ii,
prop., 35, 36), he still cannot evade this contradiction by declaring
error to be merely relative, for a merely seeming error would yet in
reality be the truth, and hence would not admit of the turn here taken
by Spinoza.
Hence--so infers Spinoza--all is good which is useful; and all is evil
which hinders from a good (iv, def., 1, 2.) Hence virtue is the power
or capacity of acting in conformity to our own nature; virtus nihil
aliud est, quam ex legibus propriae naturae agere; hence every one must
follow the necessity of his nature, and by it judge of good and evil.
Hence sin is avoided for the simple reason that it is contrary to our
nature; but why sin is yet in fact committed, Spinoza needs not to
answer, because sin in the proper sense of the word cannot be committed
at all; of sin there can be any question only in the State, and, there,
it is disobedience to civil law (iv, 37, schol. 2). As reason can
require nothing which would be against nature, hence it requires that
each should strive for that which is useful to himself; and useful is
that which brings each to a higher reality. Hence morality requires
that each should love himself, should seek to preserve as much as
possible his existence, and to bring it to higher perfection and
reality; and man is all the more virtuous the more he seeks after that
which is useful to him, (iv, prop. 18).--As the essence of reason is
knowledge, hence knowledge is the most useful of things, and the
rational man holds nothing for truly useful save that which contributes
to knowledge. Hence the highest good is the knowledge of God, and the
highest virtue is the striving thereafter; and every man has the
strength necessary thereto; and as the body is directly connected with
the spirit, and as the spirit is all the more vigorous the more
vigorous the body is, hence it is useful and virtuous to make the body
skillful.
The good always awakens delight; hence delight is per se necessarily
good, and sadness necessarily evil, as well as whatever leads to
sadness. Hence compassion is, for the rational man, evil and
irrational; true, it often inclines us to beneficence, but this we
should do at any rate even without compassion, (this is the virtue of
generositas); and the truly wise man knows indeed that nothing is or
takes place in the world over which we could grieve; moreover
compassion easily leads astray to false acting (Eth. iv, 50).--Also
humility as including a feeling of sadness is not a virtue, and springs
not from reason, but from error, inasmuch as in it man recognizes
himself as, in some respect, powerless, whereas, in virtue of the
prevalence of universal necessity, he has all the power necessary to
his destination (iv, 53). Repentance over committed sin is not only not
virtuous, but it is irrational, because it rests on the delusion of
having done a free and, that too, evil action, whereas the action was
in reality necessary, and hence good; he who feels repentance is
consequently doubly miserable. However, our moralist appears to shrink
back from the practical consequences of this doctrine; he declares it
as very dangerous when the great masses are not kept in bounds by
humility, repentance and fear (iii, 59, def. 27; iv, prop. 54),--an
apprehension which is, of course, entirely inexplicable from the
ground-principle of his system, and must be banished, as a mere
"imagination," into the sphere of unreason; for how can there be, in
Spinoza's world, a dangerous populace to be curbed only by false
notions, seeing that indeed every thing that takes place is absolutely
a necessary divine act?--The notion that any thing is bad or evil is,
according to Spinoza, per se already an evil; if man is truly rational
and has only correct ideas, then he can have no notion of evil at all,
for it in fact does not exist; whatever affects us as pain or
suffering, is such only in virtue of an erroneous, confused conception,
an "imagination;" if we have correct knowledge, then are we free from
all pain; the more we recognize all things as necessary, so much the
less are we subject to suffering; every painful state of the emotions
disappears so soon as we form to ourselves a clear notion thereof.
Hence, according to Spinoza, the sole evil is false conceptions, but
how these could arise we are not informed.--He who truly knows himself
and his circumstances, has necessarily joy; and as in all true knowing
he also knows God, and as this knowing is attended with joy, hence he
also loves God; hence in the knowledge and love of God consists the
highest joy. God himself, however, (conceived as the universe) is
without states of emotion, without love or aversion. God can neither
love nor hate, save in the love or hate of man himself; and when any
one who loves God desires to be loved in turn by God, he desires in
fact that God should cease to be God. True, we may indeed speak of
God's love, but not in such a manner as that God as a personal spirit
should love man, but only that God loves in our love; God loves not me
but God loves himself, namely, in that I love Him.
Spinoza's ethics appears at once as very widely different from all
preceding ethics; its essential characteristic is, unhistoricalness.
Greek philosophy, and also scholasticism, are the fruit of a long and
vigorous development of an historical current of human
thought,--presuppose an already historical moral consciousness, for
which they aim to create a scientific form. Spinoza's ethics sprang, in
no sense whatever, from the spirit of an historical people,--has no
historical antecedents, no historical consecration, and hence wears in
its lofty, reality-spurning bearing, also the character of historical
impossibility. Plato's idealistic state is historically possible on a
Greek basis; Spinoza's ethics can absolutely never and nowhere be the
expression of the moral consciousness of a people,--can be appropriated
only as their isolated moral consciousness by single persons, who in
proud selfishness imagine themselves far above the morally-religious
consciousness of the masses, whereas in fact they owe the very
possibility of their moral existence in society simply to this
consciousness of the masses. Spinoza has learned nothing, whether from
the philosophers of Greece, from the Middle Ages, from the religion of
the Old Testament, or from Christianity; his ethical speculations are
devoid of preparatory antecedents,--are an absolutely revolutionary
breaking-off from all historical spirit-development,--base themselves
purely upon individual thinking. His unimportant dependence on
Descartes is not in conflict therewith. If he had had even the
slightest appreciation for the significance and the rights of history,
he would have been required, on the very ground of his own system, to
recognize the Christian world-theory as a highly important revelation
of the alone-ruling God, and to regard history in general as a normal
and necessary life-manifestation of God. Whereas in fact he turns
himself contemptuously away from all history of thought, as if God had
come to true self-consciousness alone and solely in himself. He does
not free himself in any sense from the contradiction of declaring, on
the one hand, all reality as necessary and good, and all evil as mere
appearance, and of regarding on the other hand, all previously-existing
spiritual reality as absolutely wrong, senseless, and irrational.
Plato and Aristotle, for the reason that they stand more within the
current of history, stand also far nearer the Christian consciousness
than Spinoza. In his wide-reaching antithesis to the real essence of
spirit which is in fact necessarily history, he is the father of the
Naturalism of more recent times. Only the unfree, the nature-entity, is
real; the free, the spiritual, and hence also the moral, in general has
no existence whatever. Though indeed he contrasts thought and extension
in space, as being of different nature, yet this thinking is in fact
not free and spiritual, but bears absolutely a nature-character,--has
not ends before it, but simply presents manifestations of a necessary
ground; so in the case of God, so in the case of man. Ethics is
therefore degraded to a mere describing of necessary nature-phenomena;
and where it falls into the tone of moral- exhortation in view of
rational ends, then this is to be understood either in a merely
improper sense, and is indulged in simply in view of the unwise
multitude, or it comes into irreconcilable contradiction with the
ground-thought of the system. The Jew continues a Jew, in this
Christian age, only through hatred against history, which has in fact
pronounced his condemnation; he is either the petrified guest in the
midst of living society, or the insolently mocking despiser of all
historical reality, utterly devoid of reverence and respect for the
historical spirit,--a champion of the wildest radicalism. Spinoza,
breaking loose from the petrified form of Talmudic Judaism, stands
entirely isolated in the world of the historical spirit; he can find
for himself no proper place in this world,--makes only an attempt to
build up an entirely new world out of himself. The same self-delusion
which prevails throughout post-Christian Judaism, namely, in that it
dreams of still having an historical character, whereas it has in fact
sunk utterly into mere lifeless matter, is also potent in Spinoza. He
dreams of creating a system. of ethics, whereas it proves to be really
nothing else than the theoretical describing of a moral instinct devoid
of a rational end. Where the "must" dominates, there all "should" and
"would" cease. In sharp contrast to the pure idealistic Pantheism of
Erigena, who really recognizes only God and not the world, and who,
like the Indians, finds evil only in the distinguishing of the worldly
and finite from God, Spinoza holds in fact fast to the reality and
divinity of the finite,--merges God into the world, and regards the
real, simply as it is, in its isolated separateness, as good and
perfect. The Pantheism of Erigena leads to an ascetic turning-away from
the world; that of Spinoza, to a contented and absolutely satisfied
merging of self into the world; and the "akosmism" which Hegel thinks
he discovers in Spinoza is not to be found in him, but rather in the
nobler and far more spiritual John Scotus Erigena.
Spinoza exerted in his own age but little influence. Notwithstanding
the deep spiritually-moral declension of that dark period, the
religious God-consciousness was as yet too vital to fall in with this
naturalistic Pantheism; and the requirement to recognize all reality as
necessary and good, could find little response at a time of profound
disorganization and far-reaching material, misfortune in Germany. It
was reserved for a later age, when a wide-spread irreligious sentiment
was attempting to create for itself a scientific justification, to
emphasize the doctrine of Spinoza not merely in its undeniable (though
yet not to be overestimated) philosophical significancy, but also to
attempt to exalt it to a religious character, nay, even to a pretended
transfiguration of Christianity, and "to offer a lock to the manes of
the holy Spinoza "--(Schleierm., Reden; 2 ed.., p. 68).
That from this doctrine there could arise for the moral life itself
only a perverting influence, needs for the unprejudiced mind no proof.
The letting of one's self alone in his immediate naturalness and
reality, is here even lauded as wisdom; repentance and sanctification
within, and sanctifying activity without, become folly, because no one
has either the right or the ability initiatively to interfere with the
eternally necessary course of things. That Spinoza himself was an
upright man, proves nothing in favor of his system; the weight of
custom and the natural moral sentiments are often stronger than a
perverse theory; nor is, in fact, mere uprightness in our social
relations the full manifestation of the moral.
Leibnitz,--though also stimulated by Descartes, but opposed to Spinoza
in his fundamental thoughts, and more imbued with an historical spirit,
and standing in closer connection with the results of precedent
spiritual development,--did not produce a system of ethics proper,
though he broke the way for the development of such. Though highly
respecting the Christian consciousness, he yet had no very deep
appreciation for the same, and hence his thoughts in relation to
religion and morality are of a somewhat external character. He is
unable to comprehend evil in the purely spiritual sphere, but seeks for
its roots, beyond this sphere, in the essence of the creature as such.
God as the absolutely perfect rational spirit has indeed realized,
among all possible conceptions of a world, the best one; but as the
world does not contain the fullness of all perfection, which in fact
exists in God alone, nor yet all possible perfections, as in fact all
that is possible has not become real, hence there lies in the
conception even of the best world still at the same time the necessity
of a certain imperfection, without which a world is in fact not
conceivable, and which consequently belongs to the essence of the world
as such, and is a malum metaphysicum; this is, however, not per se a
reality, but only a nonbeing, a limit. The reality of the morally evil
is fortuitous, is the fault of man; only the possibility of it is
necessary. In his popularly-written work "Theodicee" (1710), he further
develops this thought, although elucidatorily rather than
scientifically.--Though Leibnitz recognizes the freedom of the will and
the guilt of man in relation to sin, still he does not sufficiently
deeply conceive of this guilt, and above all of the significancy and
workings of sin as an historical world-power, otherwise he would have
constructed his theory quite differently. He constantly seeks the roots
of evil elsewhere than in committed sin. The naturalistic determinism
of Spinoza, however, he utterly rejects; to the free personal God,
corresponds the freedom of the rational creature. The rational man
never acts from mere fortuitous fancies, but only from rational
grounds. But this moral necessity does not interfere with liberty,
because the possibility of irrational determinations still
remains.--Leibnitz conceives of ethics essentially as the doctrine of
right, inasmuch as moral duty is a right of God upon us. Right, in the
wide sense of the word, has three stages: mere right, which requires
that we injure no one; equitableness, which leaves and imparts to every
one his own; and piety, which fulfills the will of God and thereby
preserves the harmony of the world. Hence faith in the personal,
almighty and all-wise God is the foundation of all right; and the
essence of piety is love to God, from which all other forms of love,
constituting the essence of justness, receive their power. To love
signifies to be rejoiced by the happiness of another, or to make that
happiness one's own. The proper object of love is the beautiful, that
is, that, the contemplation of which delights; but God is the highest
beautiful. Piety as the highest stage of right, creates also the
highest moral communion--the church--which is destined to embrace
entire humanity. The three forms of society, corresponding to the three
stages of right, have also a threefold uniting-bond: mere power, and
reverence, and conscience; but also the first two receive their real
character of right, only through the latter. Love to God leads us into
the way of the highest happiness,--is in itself already the beginning
of the same in the "this-side," and works a constant progress in
perfection also in the "yon-side." [222]
In an original spirit, and, in the moral sphere, almost independently
of Leibnitz, wrote Christian Wolf. He created a complete ethical
system. [223] His great reputation, and the authoritative character
which he enjoyed with his contemporaries, were, however, almost
entirely overthrown in the Kantian period; that over-estimation, as
also the subsequent under-estimation, were equally unjust. A many-sided
boldly-exploring spirit, and, though in many respects deceiving himself
as to the scientific value of propositions which he uttered with the
greatest confidence, and attempted to demonstrate in a not unfrequently
stiff mathematical form, he yet attained to an extraordinary influence,
because of the clearness and precision of his ideas, and of their
manner of presentation, and gave rise, also in the sphere of ethics, to
a very vigorous scientific movement; and though his commendable effort
to remain in harmony with Christian revelation was not by any means
always realized, yet it helped to preserve for a long while in Germany,
as in contrast to the frivolous hatred of Revelation prevalent in
France and in England, a more earnest Christian and scientific spirit.
Precisely in the field of morals Wolf was greatly influential toward
the independent shaping of German science; and he broke off the
excessive dependence, also of theological ethics, on Aristotle. While
Wolf, in his decided, scientifically-grounded recognition of the
personal God--whom he conceives of indeed rather merely, in his
relation to the world, as Creator and Governor, and less,--in relation
to himself, in his inner essence-holds fast to the
objectively-religious basis of ethics; he yet at first view seems to
endanger the subjective foundation thereof, namely, the moral freedom
of the will, by his determinism.
Whatever takes place, also the seemingly fortuitous, has a sufficient
ground, either in itself or in its connection with other things, and is
in so far determined; there takes place no change whatever which is not
conditioned in the peculiarity of the concatenation of the universe,
and determined by the antecedent circumstances thereof, just as a
clock, set in motion for a whole year, is determined in each moment of
its movement by this its first starting; the world is just such an
absolutely, determined clock-work,--is a machine. Also in the freedom
of the human will, every real determination has its sufficient ground,
and is not arbitrary. This freedom consists in the possibility of
choosing and doing the opposite of what we really do, but that the
opposite possible should become real pre-supposes motives, and in so
far as the motive. is sufficient, this determination to realization is
also conditioned by the motive. It is impossible that a person who
knows something as better, should prefer to it the worse, and hence in
such a case it is necessary that he should choose the better; but the
will is free in this nevertheless, as in fact man has the ground of his
determination of will in himself.--This sounds at once very
questionable, and, as is well known, Wolf was, because of this
doctrine, driven from the Prussian states, as politically dangerous.
However, it is not to be overlooked that when man is considered as a
rational creature per se irrespective of the already-existing
depravity, his freedom is in fact not a groundless and irrational
caprice, but is determined by rational knowledge, and that, for the
really moral man in possession of correct knowledge, there does in fact
exist a moral necessity of following the rational. Hence Wolf's thought
is not per se incorrect, but only too unguarded, and therefore liable
to misunderstanding. As, however, Wolf expressly declares himself
against determinism as held by Spinoza, and as he distinctly and
repeatedly asserts the real, free will-determination of man, though
indeed not as irrational caprice, [224] we are consequently not at
liberty to attribute to him the full determinism of Spinoza.--The
question as to whether, and in how far, our knowledge is conditioned by
and dependent on our moral nature, and hence as to whether this
knowledge is freely, or absolutely unfreely, determined, Wolf does not
answer, but simply holds, that our willing is conditioned and
determined by our knowledge; and with him, as with Socrates, the
essential point is simply to correct and disseminate knowledge, and
then the corresponding moral action follows of itself with inner
necessity. Hence we can explain the almost unbounded pretensions which
the Wolfian ethics makes, and hence also the per se correct, but (in
view of the actual condition of humanity) erroneous thought that ethics
is not simply a scientific consciousness of the moral life, but also an
essential motive to the moral life itself,--that, properly understood,
ethics is the source of virtue. This thought stands forth more or less
clearly throughout Wolf's writings; practice follows theory of
necessity. The moral life is like a mathematical question proposed for
solution; it is only necessary to have clear notions of virtue and vice
and of duty, and then evil disappears of itself, and man becomes
virtuous. "I have," says Wolf, (in the preface to his second edition),
"not a little lightened the entire practice of the good and the
avoidance of the evil, by the fact that I have shown that when one
wishes to turn the will, it is just the same as when one disputes,
namely, in that one has at all times in the one case, as in the other,
simply to answer to one of the premises of an inference;" and later (in
the preface to the third edition) he says: "When my writings on
world-wisdom and, among them, the present one on what men are to do and
what not to do, appeared, those who are able to understand and judge of
the matter for themselves, and who were not prepossessed by unfavorable
prejudices, judged that thenceforth reason and virtue would become
universal, and that every body would strive, by this means, to attain
to happiness of life." Wolf, however, expressly deprecates the
misconception, that in his ethics he "ascribes too much to nature and
leaves no room for grace; the doctrines taught by me," says he, "serve
much rather to make clearly understood the difference between nature
and grace, and especially the great help which the latter is to the
former, so that consequently they are guides to grace;" the Christian
religion offers more than world-wisdom can do; rather does man learn by
this rational morality, that his natural powers do not suffice, and
hence he perceives all the better the necessity and excellency of the
grace which is offered to us in the Christian religion, and which
supplies that which nature lacks. How it can be that the natural powers
do not suffice, and how, on the presumption of such a lack of strength,
the philosophical ethics of Wolf can yet be, independently, effectual
in itself, we are not informed.
Ethics has to do with the free actions of men as distinguished from the
necessary ones; and freedom consists in the possibility of choice
between several possible things. The condition of a man is perfect when
his earlier and later conditions agree with each other, and all of them
with the essence and nature of man., The free actions of man promote or
diminish this perfection, that is, they are either good or bad. When,
therefore, actions are to be judged according to their moral worth,
then we must inquire what change they bring about in the condition of
our body or soul. Hence free actions become good or evil in virtue of
their effect; and as the effect follows from them necessarily and
cannot fail, hence actions are good or evil in and of themselves, and
are not made so simply by God's will; hence if it were possible that
there were no God, and that the present inter-dependence of things
could exist without him, still the free actions of men would
nevertheless remain good or evil.--Here the per se correct
ground-thought of the moral receives an external and therefore
misleading application, inasmuch as the result of our actions is
dependent on other powers than these actions themselves; only in an
ideal and as yet not sin-perverted condition of humanity, would such a
judging of the moral worth of actions from their result, hold good,
though even then it would be certainly more appropriate to determine
this worth from the essence of the action itself and not simply from
its result. In this respect Wolf clings so fast to the merely-outward
that he says: "Thus, he who is tempted to steal learns that stealing is
wrong, because it is followed by the gallows." Equally one-sided is the
contrasting of the goodness per se of an action and of the will of God.
The general maxim of ethics is therefore this: " Do that which renders
thee and thy condition, or that of others, more perfect; avoid that
which makes it more imperfect;" this is a universal rule of nature.
[This "or that of others" is only thrust in, and is not at all derived
from the ground-thought; the dualism involved therein, and the possible
contradiction, are in no manner reconciled.]--The sufficient motive of
the will is the knowledge of the good; and it is impossible that one
should not will a per se good action, when one only clearly comprehends
it; hence when we do not will it, it is for no other reason than that
we do not comprehend it." Likewise is the knowledge of evil the motive
of non-willing or aversion, and hence it is likewise impossible that
one should will a per se evil action when one clearly understands it.
Hence all moral willing and doing of the good or of the evil rests
absolutely on our knowing or non-knowing. True, man can indeed act
contrary to his conscience, but this takes place only when, because of
special circumstances, he regards the good as evil, or the evil as
good, and hence, after all, from error. The ultimate end of all moral
actions, and hence of our entire life, is the perfection of ourselves
and of our condition, or happiness, which is consequently the highest
good for man.
Ethics proper, Wolf treats as the doctrine of duties. Duty is an action
which conforms to law. Law is a rule to which we are bound to conform
our free actions; it is either a natural, a divine, or a human law.
Reason is the teacher of the law of nature; this law fully embraces the
whole moral life, and is, for this life, sufficient and absolutely
valid and unchangeable, for it rests on the harmonizing of our actions
with our nature. But as this our nature is established by the divine
creative will, hence the law of nature is at the same time also a
divine law, an expression of the divine will, though this will is not
to be conceived of as an arbitrary one, so that, for example, God's
will might declare the per se good for evil, and the per se evil for
good. The duties are: (1) duties of man toward himself, and more
specifically, toward his understanding, toward his will, toward his
body, and the duty in regard to our outward condition (that is, our
social position); (2) duties toward God, and more specifically, love to
God, fear and reverence, trust, prayer and thankfulness, and outward
worship; (3) duties toward other men, and more specifically, toward
friends and enemies, duties in regard to property, and duties in speech
and in contracts. This general classification of duties became
subsequently very usual.--Upon ethics is based natural right, which
treats of the allowable, as ethics proper treats of the obligatory; all
rights rest on duties. The ground-thought of right is: thou Inayest do
whatever sustains and promotes the perfection of thy own condition and
that of the condition of others, and thou mayest do nothing which is
contrary thereto. In the further application of right to society, and
hence as politics, the welfare of society is the norm of action.
Wolfian ethics has manifestly, both in form and in contents, great
defects. In respect to form, it may be reproached with a manifold
commingling of empirical maxims with speculation; notions derived from
experience are often simply analyzed and then used as bases for further
inferences, and that, too, with the pretension of philosophical
validity; also there is abundant philosophical dogmatism, inasmuch as
the thoughts are very frequently not really developed in regular
process from the ground-thought, but are only associated and joined
with it. In respect to matter, there prevails throughout this ethics,
despite all its monotheistic presuppositions, a naturalistic tendency;
Wolf knows only the immediate natural existence of the moral spirit,
but not the history thereof, that is, the life proper of the same. His
ethics has a history of the spirit neither as its presupposition nor as
its goal; there is created by the moral activity not a moral history of
humanity, but only a state of the individual. Hence the question as to
whether indeed the actual nature of man is not already in some respects
a product of such a moral history of humanity,--whether or not it is a
pure unchanged original nature,--falls outside of this circle of
thought, and in fact remained unheeded by philosophical ethics, and
hence also to a large degree by theological ethics, throughout the
eighteenth and a part of the nineteenth century; and in this respect
Wolf was, in fact, the forerunner of the modern Rationalistic school.
And what he says of sinfulness, of divine grace and of Christianity, by
way of guarding against this naturalistic ground-tendency, is rather
mere personal good-will than a consequential result of his system. All
real interest is directed here to the sufficient reason, and not to the
end; there is lacking to morality and to history the vital heart-blood
of free spiritual productive creation. Christianity can be, to this
world-theory, at best only a higher revelation of the truth, a
furthering of knowledge, but not an historical history-creating fact.
Hence in the further theological development of this stand-point,
Christianity constantly sunk more and more to a mere revealed system of
morals, which, however, contained and could contain nothing other than
the Wolfian doctrine itself. Positive contents proper, Wolf does not
really give to the moral law; he does not rise beyond mere formal
definitions. What the good is, in and of itself, we are not informed;
we learn only that it stands in harmony with reason and makes us happy;
hence it is embraced only in its relations to something else, but not
in its inner contents.
In the spirit of Wolf, though with some independence, Canz labored
further, in Tuebingen; his Disciplinae morales omnes, 1739, is an able
survey of the entire ethical field as then known; more theological is
his Instruction in the Duties of Christians, (1745, 4to., presenting
ethics as "duty-imposing God-acquaintance" and prefacing the doctrine
of duties simply by an essay on the four chief springs of all human
action and omission, namely, the flesh, nature, reason, and the
gracious workings of the Holy Spirit). Alexander Baumgarten (a brother
of the noted theologian) perfected, in his Philosophia ethica (1740,
1751), the Wolfian ethics, especially in formal respects; he places our
duties toward God (as those which condition all the others) at the
head.--G. F. Meier of Halle wrote, on the basis of Baumgarten's book, a
fuller and more popular work: Philosophical Ethics (1753).--(The
voluminous and superficial Eberhard appears in his Ethics of Reason
(1781) merely as a feeble, barren imitator of Wolf.)
Nearly contemporaneously with Wolf, had Thomasius (of Leipzig and
Halle) presented ethics from the stand-point of mere common sense in a
very popular form, [225] offering indeed many good observations, but
containing neither precision of thought nor a really scientific
development. "He places Christian ethics higher than philosophical, but
conceives of the former very superficially; Aristotle and the schoolmen
he despises and combats without understanding them. The essence of
virtue is love, or the desire naturally inherent in man to unite
himself to, and to remain in union with, that which the understanding
recognizes as good; in this love lies blessedness, that is, repose of
soul and absence of pain, as the highest good; love is irrational when
it aims at vain, transitory, and hurtful things, or when it is too
violent, or wills the impossible; from such love spring all the vices.
General love to man, as the essence of morality, embraces five chief
virtues: sociableness, truthfulness, modesty, forbearance, patience;
self-love should rest only on love to man. The necessity of revelation,
Thomasius recognizes; philosophy does not supply its place, but leads
to it, in that it leads to self-acquaintance.
Clear-headedly and with deep Christian knowledge, Christian August
Crusius (of Leipzig, ob. 1776) opposed the Wolfian philosophy, but was
abler in criticizing than in creating, and hence. of more limited
influence than Wolf, ("Directions for Living Rationally," [226] etc.,
1744; third edition, 1767). He declares himself very definitely against
the determinism of Wolf; the human will is not absolutely determined by
its knowledge, but remains, in relation thereto, free, and can act
contrarily thereto; he appeals in proof thereof to the perfectly
unambiguous evidence of consciousness, and to the full responsibility
of man for his sins. The determinations of the will are indeed, as
rational, not arbitrary and fortuitous, but have, on the contrary, a
sufficient reason; but this reason is by no means a
necessarily-determining one, but the will has always the possibility of
acting contrarily even to a sufficient reason; and Crusius goes, in
this respect, so far as to find perfect freedom only in holding that
the will can determine itself as easily for the one course as for the
other. All duties he considers as contained in our duty toward God, and
hence he does not co-ordinate, but subordinates, them to this duty.
Moral effort has indeed happiness and perfection for its goal, but it
has its law in the divine will, which likewise aims thereat. Man's
relation of dependence to his Creator directs him to make his entire
life dependent on the holy will of God; our striving toward the
rational God-willed goal, becomes truly moral only when it is the
expression of loving obedience to the revealed divine will. Hence it is
incorrect that the good is good per se even without reference to God's
will; rather is it good simply because God wills it, though this divine
willing is not irrational caprice, but a morally necessary act of his
holy essence. Hence morality rests in its very essence on religion; and
the moral law may not, as in Wolf's system, stand apart from the
religious consciousness, but requires a free God-obeying course of
acting answering to the divine will, and therefore also to the end of
the perfection of the creature. A natural, though not absolutely
sufficing manifestation of the divine will, is given in the conscience,
which, however, does not, as with Wolf, simply form a theoretical
judgment, but contains also at the same time a feeling of joy or
anguish, and hence an impulse. Crusius separates prudence from the
doctrine of morality proper, as the ability of finding, for rational
ends, also the special appropriate means.--A more popular presentation
of this view is contained in the so-long-esteemed, widely-read, and
influential "Moral Lectures" [227] of Gellert (1770), which, however,
are estimable more for their noble sentiments and warmth of feeling
than for depth of thought; and which, in their rhetorically verbose and
often dull and tedious manner could have made so great an impression
only in an age which had lost all taste for strong food; discursive
discussions on "the utility of health," etc., were then regarded as
interesting reading. Gellert addresses himself more to the feelings
than to the cognizing understanding, but the former are not embraced in
Christian depth, but rather as mere feeble sentimentality.
Since the middle of this century the taste for really philosophical
thinking had been declining in Germany, in the precise measure in which
the pretension to the name of "philosophical century" was put forward;
instead of a spiritually-vigorous, constantly-progressing development
of thought, we find, for the most part, only a self-complacent
superficial criticising tendency and arbitrarily-brought-together,
ungrounded assertions and observations, derived more from outward
experience than from reason, and often delighting in rhetorical
bombast.--The voluminous Feder of Goettingen (Prackt. Philos., 1776;
Unters. ueb. d. menschlichen Willen, 1779-85), reminds indeed often of
Wolf by his pedantic minuteness, but not by depth of thought; and he
bases himself in the main on the empiricism of Locke.--Garve, who was
highly esteemed by his contemporaries, derived the most of his matter
from the English moralists, and limited his own moral thoughts to
annotations on other writers (Cicero), and to disconnected but clear
and elegantly written, though neither profound nor ingenious,
dissertations.
__________________________________________________________________
[217] Enchiridion militis christ.; Matrimonii christ. institt.;
Institt. principis christ.; and others.
[218] Opp., Bas. 1567, 3 t.
[219] Manuductio ad Stoicam philosophiam, 2d ed., 1610.
[220] Ethica Aristotelica, etc., Selenoburgi, s. a., 4to.,--later:
Cosmopoli, 1681, 4to.
[221] De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum, 1527 (?) then in Col.,
1531.
[222] In various essays, especially in the preface to Cod. juris
diplom., 1693; Gubrauer: Leibnitz; 1842, i, p. 226 sqq.
[223] Vernuenft. Gedanken. v. d. Menschen Thun u. Lassen (1720); more
elaborate is: Philosoophia moralis s. Ethica, methodo scientifico
pertractata (1750), both works forming the first part of a whole which
he presented in his Philos. prac. univ. (1738), the second part of
which embraces the doctrine of society or politics; also in his Jus
naturae (1740) there is much ethical matter.
[224] Introduction to the 2d ed. of his Moral.
[225] Von der Kunst vernuenftig. u. tugenhaft zu LIEBEN, etc., 1710;
Von der Artzenei wider die unvernuenftige Liebe, 1704; comp.
Fuelleborn: Beitr. z. Gesch. d. Phil, 1791, iv.
[226] Anweisung vernuenftig zu leben
[227] Moralische Vorlesungen.
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SECTION XLI.
In England and France an anti-Christian tendency gave rise to a
progressively-degenerating moralism, which,--resting on an idealess
empiricism, and, though vigorously resisted, yet maintaining a rising
influence for a long time,--based itself in part on a superficial
deism, but also in part, and more consequentially, advanced to pure
atheism and materialism, and exalted into a moral law the lowest form
of Epicurean self-seeking. But it was especially reserved to the French
mind to draw the ultimate consequences of these premises, and to seek
in the wildest demoralization the highest civilization and
"philosophy," and, through a destruction-loving dissolution of all
moral consciousness in the higher classes (a dissolution which swept
over devastatingly into the un-German circles of the German literary
world) to prepare the way for that general convulsion in Europe which
at length attained, only through horrors and anarchy, to some presence
of mind and to some degree of calm. English moralism lingered in
general in a state of capricious wavering between the principle of
happiness and the principle of spiritual perfection, between the
principle of subjective eudemonism and the principle of objective
spiritualism. The reaction of this freethinking on Germany shows itself
mostly in the superficial utilitarian morality of the period of
self-styled "illuminism."
Quite otherwise than in Germany was philosophical ethics shaped in
England and France. While in Germany, notwithstanding the deep
spiritual and moral disorder consequent upon the Thirty Years' war,
there prevailed, for a long while still, a predominantly Christian
spirit, (which remained proof against the. Spinozistic Pantheism, and
sought to develop philosophy in harmony with Christianity, and only
gradually and at a late hour was enervated by French freethinking
through the un-German culture of the higher classes), in England the
religious contests had resulted in a deep spiritual laxity and in a
growing aversion to Christianity and to the spiritual in general. The
unspiritual empiricism of Bacon and Locke seconded this superficial
empirical turning-away to the immediately visible and prosaic reality
of the world. At first it was regarded as a progress to disregard the
doctrinal contents of Christianity and to insist only on its morals;
then it followed very naturally that this morality, as divorced from
its doctrinal basis, should be divorced also from its historical
presuppositions in general, and be derived only from the consciousness
of the natural man, and that religion in general, as in contrast to the
Christian religion, should be conceived simply as a system of moralism,
over which then, not as a foundation but as a protecting
superstructure, a superficial deism was constructed;--or, indeed, this
tendency was followed out further, and men rejected also this deism,
and contented themselves with the superficial morality of individual
self-love; and it must be regarded as a real progress (as in contrast
to this spiritual superficiality), when clearer thinkers skeptically
undermined also this pretended natural religion and natural morality,
and insisted on the vanity of all human knowledge.
Bacon of Verulcam, though not himself constructing an ethical system,
opened, by his empiricism (which opposed all previous philosophy, and
according to which there is absolutely no knowledge `a priori, but only
such as springs from immediate and primarily sensuous experience), a
current of thought which was dangerous to the Christian world-theory,
although he himself did not in the least oppose the Christian
consciousness, but rather placed Christian faith above all
philosophical knowledge. However, he was not clearly conscious of the
tendency of his fundamental thoughts. On this basis, Locke (ob. 1704)
subsequently developed a system of philosophy which attained,
especially in England, to a wide-reaching influence, but which is in
fact, properly speaking, the very opposite of all speculation. True
knowledge arises only from the experience of our sensuous existence;
general notions are not the first but the last; the human mind per se
has and produces neither notions nor ideas, but is rather a tabula rasa
upon which the experience of the objective world first writes its
characters; and it is only through impressions from objective existence
that the spirit attains, through abstraction, comparison, and analysis,
to ideas. Out of this empiricism, however harmless and pretentionless
it might seem at first examination, was destined logically to result a
system of religion and morality essentially different from the
Christian world-theory; and historical facts realized this logical
sequence. It sweeps away, in fact, at a single blow all ideal contents
of the scientific and religious consciousness, in so far as these lie
outside of sensuous experience. But experience furnishes not ideas, but
only impressions; and at furthest one attains only to abstracted
notions, which, however, have no general and unconditional validity;
for the ideas of the divine and eternal, there is no place. But man
must have something ideal; if he has it not in and above himself, so
that he has simply to accept it in his rational self-consciousness and
in religious faith, then he must have it before himself,--must
practically and productively create it, in action; the ideal is indeed
not yet real, but it is to become so. It is consequently, at least, a
presentiment of reason which turned this idealess empiricism toward
ethics. But precisely this one-sided moralism shows most evidently, the
incorrectness of the ground-principles; an idealess morality sinks at
once to a morality of the most ignoble self-seeking and materialism. A
moral consciousness is, according to this system, derived only from
direct experience; what is good I know only from the fact that it makes
upon me a pleasant impression, affects me, as a particular individual,
with the feeling of pleasure; individual happiness becomes the measure
of the moral, and thus Epicureanism has again attained to validity.
Already before the more complete development of the Baconian empiricism
by Locke, Thomas Hobbes had drawn the natural and clear consequences of
the same. [228] Only what we experience is true; but we can experience
only through the senses, and hence only the sensuous; only this is true
and real, even in man himself. Human action has not a purpose, for a
purpose is a mere idea without reality, but only a ground, namely, in
his sensuously-material reality, and, in virtue of this ground, it is
also fully determined; hence the moral law is in no respect different
from the law of nature. Good or evil is the agreeable or disagreeable
state of the individual person, and hence is determined by our
immediate feelings, and has in no sense a general significancy beyond
the individual being; what is good for me is not so for another; hence,
in regard to the good there can be no general decision; every one
determines this according to his feelings and experience; every one
strives, and rightly too, to have the most possible feelings of
pleasure, and in this he is rational and moral. Self-love in this
sense, namely, of referring every thing to one's own enjoyment of the
agreeable, is the highest moral law; each has a right to all. From this
it follows, indeed, that through mere morality no harmonious life of
men in common is possible, but that, on the contrary, all strive
against each other,--a war of all against all; but this leads not to a
proof of the unreality of the moral law, but only to the necessity of
the State; but also the state, because of the lack of a
universally-valid objective norm of morality, can rest only on the
individual will of the strong. The unlimited despotism of a single
person is alone capable of bringing order and harmony into the chaos of
individual strivings; and all individuals must submit themselves
unconditionally to the will of this ruler,--a will which knows no other
law than its own pleasure, and which consequently is always right, let
the ruler decree what he will, and which is for all the citizens of
that state the unassailable law and conscience, and which has
consequently to determine what shall constitute right and morality.
Also all religion in the state depends exclusively on the will of the
ruler; and he alone has to determine what shall be believed and not
believed; no one has a right, in the state, to hold any thing else for
good and true in the moral and religious sphere, than what the king
declares as good and true; sin is only a contradiction to the king's
will. Whatever is not by him prescribed or forbidden, is morally
indifferent.--We cannot deny to this system full consequentiality, and
the unabashed nakedness of the same is at least more honest than those
more recent views, which seek to bemantle the very same ground-thoughts
with more moral forms and disguises.
In express antagonism to this materialism, Cumberland made general
benevolence the principle of morality; [229] but he rendered it
difficult for himself to refute the consequential Hobbes, by the fact
that he placed himself essentially upon the stand-point of sensuous
experience, and undertook therefrom to rise to higher religious and
moral ideas. He attains thus to the principle which he makes the
foundation of all morality, namely, that the striving for the common
good of the entire system of rational creatures leads to the good of
all the single parts of the same, whereof our own happiness constitutes
a portion. Hence the chief end of moral effort is not one's own but the
general good, although the former is contained in the latter. This
moral law, to the observance of which man is obligated by nature
itself, is especially seconded by religion, and sanctified by the will
of God, as Lawgiver, who associates with the law rewards and
punishments. But the idea of God is not already pre-supposed in the
moral consciousness, but this idea pre-supposes this
consciousness.--Hobbes was opposed from a stand-point diametrically
opposed to this, and related to that of Plato, and hence also more
effectually and consequentially, by Cudworth, [230] who entirely
rejected the empirical basis of the moral, and appealed to original
moral ideas given in reason itself. He assails materialism and atheism
in a learned and ingenious manner, and declares the moral ideas which
transcend all experience, and which can never be adequately explained
by experience, as a self-revelation of God himself, impressed upon
finite reason; and in his opposition to empiricism, he goes so far as
to hold that the moral idea stands even above the will of God, so that
this will does not determine the good, but is determined by the per se
valid idea of the good as existing in God. A complete moral system
Cudworth did not carry out; and his influence was less extensive,
because of the prevalent tendency of the English mind toward empirical
reality, than it deserved to be.--Basing himself upon Cudworth's
theory, Henry More presented a brief but comprehensive treatise on
philosophical ethics. [231] (The end of morality is the perfection, and
therefore the happiness, of man, which rests essentially on virtue;
sensuousness has no right in itself, but stands under the dominion of
moral reason; the antecedent condition of morality is the freedom of
the will, as itself not determined by any thing, not even by
knowledge.) In a similar spirit, Samuel Clarke (1708) insisted on the
view, that creatures are for each other. Morality consists in
conducting one's self, by virtue of free rationality, in harmony with
the universe, and in the proper relation to one's self and to the rest
of the world, even as irrational creatures do from inner impulse. This
relation cannot be arbitrarily fixed by man, but is fixed by the nature
itself of things, and man is morally to conform himself to this
relation; thereby he realizes his happiness.
Locke endeavored to avoid the inferences which Hobbes had drawn from
the ground-thought of empiricism, at least in the moral sphere. [232]
Inborn moral ideas, or ideas that lie in the essence of reason itself
and in the conscience, do not exist; all moral laws are derived simply
from the observation of real life,--are inferred from the benefit which
certain modes of action have for the well-being of the actor or of
others, and hence may, under different circumstances, be very
different; and the actual differences, nay, even contradictions, of
moral views that do exist, prove that these views do not lie in reason
itself. It is only through education and dominant custom that moral
opinions rise into pretended fixed moral principles,--into laws of
conscience; there is no innate primitive conscience; the approval or
disapproval of a particular organized society is the sole sufficient
measure of virtue and vice. Here, however, it is natural that such
modes of action as are useful not merely to the subject himself, but
also to others and to the community, should also be regarded in general
as praiseworthy, and hence virtuous, so that for a certain circle of
actions, there may indeed be found an essential agreement of moral
judgment, and hence a certain natural law lying in the nature of the
thing, which is to be regarded as also God's law. However, Locke
derives this law not from the nature of the moral thought itself, but
in fact, simply from public opinion, and hence from experience, and he
rises only through inferences from facts of experience to more general
notions, which, however, have by no means a validity absolutely and per
se. Hence the moral idea does not transcend reality,--does not so much
say what should be, as rather what already is; a moral judgment upon
the actual moral consciousness of a society is, according to Locke's
theory, impossible; for not the idea is the measure for reality, but
reality is the measure for the idelt. The question whether indeed the
condition and the moral consciousness of society themselves might not
be perverted and untrue, is entirely out of place,--is indeed
absurd,--as it would assume to measure moral reality by an idea
independent thereof; the moral consciousness of society is always
right.--The limiting of these far-reaching assertions by the
interposing of a superficially-conceived divine revelation is without
any sufficient foundation in Locke's system.--The Lockian view has
indeed, as compared with that of Hobbes, a somewhat more respectable
tone, but it has on the other hand less inner consequentiality. The
thought of self-love, or, more properly, self-seeking, is at least
intelligible and clear; but the taking, as a basis, the judgment of
society must be regarded as entirely ungrounded, and is in reality
utterly meaningless, inasmuch as, in every society, moral views the
very opposite of each other are represented, so that consequently the
individual is, after all, referred to his own private judgment, which,
as it rests upon no per se valid idea, can in fact be based only on the
feeling of pleasure or displeasure.
The consequences of this unspiritual ethics showed themselves very
soon. The position of Wollaston [233] is as yet moderate, but for that
reason all the more indefinite and unclear. He reduces all religion to
morality; religion is only the obligation to do the good and avoid the
evil. The good is identical with the true; every action is good which
gives expression to a true proposition, that is, which actually
recognizes that a thing is as it really is, and which hence corresponds
to the nature or end of a thing; things should be treated as being what
they are. The destination of man himself is happiness; but happiness is
pleasure,--the consciousness of something agreeable, of that which is
in harmony with the nature of man; hence true pleasure springs only
from that which corresponds to the destination of man, and consequently
to reason. Morality or religion is, therefore, the seeking of happiness
through the realizing of truth and of reason.--The next advancement of
this tendency consisted in this, that the thought of happiness was
fixed more definitely in view. Man wills by his very nature to be
happy, that is, he has inclinations the fulfillment of which renders
him happy. These inclinations man does not give to himself, but he has
them from nature,--finds them in a definite form existing within
himself; they are the norms of man's actions, that is, he is good when
he follows his natural inclinations. This advance to Epicurean ethics
is made by the plausible and fashionable writer, Lord Shaftesbury.
[234] Every action springs from an inner determinateness of the actor,
from a proclivity or propensity; hence the moral worth of an action
lies essentially in this propensity; the propensity aims at that which
gives pleasure, and avoids that which gives displeasure; that which by
its presence gives pleasure, and by its absence displeasure, is good;
the opposite thereof is evil; as objects of effort, the former is the
good, the latter the evil; between these there lies the sphere of the
indifferent. The decision as to good and evil is not arbitrary; but
that is good which corresponds to the. peculiarity of a being, and, for
that very reason, gives pleasure to the being experiencing it.
Happiness is the greatest possible sum of satisfactions or experiences
of pleasure; spiritual pleasure-impressions stand higher, however, than
the merely sensuous; and the generally-useful or benevolent
propensities are, in turn, the better among the spiritual ones, for
they duplicate the enjoyment by the participation of others; and they
do not stand in contradiction to our own personal good, because they
relate to the whole of which we ourselves form a part. Hence true
morality consists in the striving after the proper relation and harmony
of the individual and of the whole; the one is not to be merged into
the other, for man is just as much an individual as he is a member of
the whole, and self-love is peer se just as legitimate as the
propensity of general benevolence. Hence virtue consists in a
rationally-calculated. weighing out of the measure of the reciprocally
limiting propensities, that is, in preserving a proper equilibrium. The
decision in this case is given primarily by our innate feeling for good
and evil, by the moral sense or instinct,--not taken in the sense of a
conscious thought, but of a feeling, a feeling of pleasure in the
presence of the good, and of displeasure in the presence of the evil.
This moral sense is developed by exercise and reflection into a moral
judgment. Virtue is indeed independent of religion, and even atheism
does not directly endanger it; but yet it receives its proper force and
life only in the belief in a good, all-wise and justly-governing
God.--Shaftesbury endeavors to rise above the fortuitousness of the
determination of the moral in Hobbes and Locke, and to attain to a per
se valid determination of the same; but after all, he also finds the
deciding voice only in the fortuitous feeling of pleasure or
displeasure; his empiricism is essentially subjective. That, as
differing from Locke, he regards the moral feeling as innate, does not
yet guarantee its objective truth, and, at all events, the objection of
Locke holds good against it, namely, the actually-existing diversity of
moral views. But this moral feeling is not a moral idea; it has no
contents, but utters itself only in each separate case, when it is
stimulated by an action or an object, even as a piano gives a note only
when it is struck; otherwise this feeling is silent and dead, whereas
an idea is living and conscious even in the absence of any reality
affecting it; this subjective feeling itself is moreover incapable of
being tested by a per se and absolutely valid idea.
While Collins, the eulogist of Epicurus, a disciple and friend of
Locke, and the first who called himself Freethinker, denied the freedom
of the will and regarded human action as absolutely determined by the
influences surrounding us, Hutcheson (of Glasgow) endeavored to rectify
the moral system of Shaftesbury by assuming good-will toward others, in
contradistinction to self-love, as the contents proper of the innate
moral sense. To the purely empirical foundation of ethics, however, he
held fast in his "System of Moral Philosophy" (1755). We find that
certain actions in men, even when these men are not affected by the
consequences of the same, meet with approbation or disapprobation; from
this it follows that the ground of this judgment is not personal
advantage or disadvantage, but a natural moral sense, which perceives
the moral irrespective of personal interest, and has therein pleasure,
and which therefore also, equally disinterestedly, impels to moral
action. This inborn moral sense is not a conscious idea, but an
immediate feeling which differs from the interested self-feeling,--just
as we have an immediate pleasure in a beautiful, regular form, without
being conscious of the mathematical laws thereof, or having any benefit
therefrom. The moral approbation and striving are consequently also all
the purer the less our personal interest is involved in the case. The
selfish and the benevolent propensities mutually exclude each other,
for benevolence begins only where personal interest ceases. Therefore
we have to make our choice between the two propensities, and as the
benevolent one is the purer, hence the moral proper consists
exclusively in it. Virtue is not practiced for the sake of a benefit or
an enjoyment, but purely out of inner pleasure in it; our nature has an
inner innate tendency to promote the welfare of others without having
any regard therein to personal benefit. This benevolence toward others
is the essence of all the virtues; for even our care for our own
welfare is exercised in order to preserve ourselves for the good of
others; the degree of virtue rises in proportion to the happiness
procured for others, and to the number of persons benefited by us. The
preliminarily-ignored moral relation of man to God, Hutcheson afterward
brings--not without violence--into his system, by holding that the
moral sense leads also to the union of the moral creature with the
Author of all perfection.--The fundamental thoughts of this ethical
system are indeed well meant, but they are scientifically weak and
arbitrary; from the Christian view they are far remote, for the
self-complacent mirroring of self in the pretendedly pure virtuousness
of one's own benevolent heart, and the easy contenting of self in a
certain circle of benevolent outward actions, are, in one direction,
quite as dangerous for correct self-knowledge, as is the system of pure
self-seeking in the other.--A related system, but one manifoldly
complicated in unclear originality, was developed by Adam Smith (1759,
and later). He emphasized, more strongly still, the element of feeling
for others in the innate moral sense, and conceived of it as the
feeling of sympathy, in virtue of which we share in natural
participation in the joy and in the pains of others, and strive for the
participation and harmony of others with our own feelings and actions;
in this harmony we find the good, and in the opposite the evil. The
morality of our action we recognize by the fact that it is adapted to
awaken the sympathies of others; a perfectly isolated man could not
possibly have a moral judgment as to himself, because he would lack the
criterion, the mirror. Hence man must always so act that others not
standing in the same fortuitous relations, that is, impartial persons,
can sympathize with him. The obscure conviction that the moral
consciousness must rest on a per se valid idea, brings the empiric to
this strange and certainly very difficult and inadequate procedure,
which, however, though expressly intended to throw off the
accidentality of individual being, yet cannot, after all, get rid of
it.
Also David Hume treats of the subject of ethics, though with less
acumen than that wherewith, in the sphere of religion and of
theoretical philosophy, he skeptically undermines the certainty of all
knowledge. [235] While, in the field of philosophy, he ingeniously
exposed the feeble superficiality of the prevalent empiricism, he yet
hesitated to introduce his skepticism, with like consequentiality into
the practical sphere of morals. A real science of the moral there
cannot be, in the opinion of Hume, seeing that the moral is not an
object of the cognizing understanding, but only of mere feeling or
sensation. The ultimate end of all action is happiness; but that which
renders happy can be determined only by sensation; hence a sense, or
tact, or feeling innate in all men, decides as to good and evil, in
that the good excites a pleasant, and the evil an unpleasant feeling.
Hence we must learn by way of pure observation what actions violate, or
answer to, the moral feeling; and we find, now, that the useful excites
moral approbation, and more particularly, that which is useful to the
community. General and necessary moral ideas there are none; and even
the moral feeling is very different in different nations; hence moral
conceptions have always only a varying worth and rest essentially upon
custom. The obligation to virtue rests on the fact that in virtue there
is furnished the greatest guarantee for actual happiness; and also the
working for the good of others reacts in the end upon our own good.
Thus Hume coincides essentially with Locke. That he regards suicide as
allowable is easily explainable from his ground-thoughts.--By means of
a feeble and unfounded eclecticism, Adam Ferguson (of Edinburgh) [236]
endeavors to avoid the one-sidedness of other moralists, but only
involves himself in worse confusion. To the moral he gives three
fundamental laws: the law of self-preservation, the law of community or
society, and the "law of estimation," (the latter relating to the per
se excellent),--without reducing this threefoldhess to any kind of
clear unity. He attains to an unpredjudiced consideration of the moral
in detail only at the expense of the consequentiality of his system.
The ultimate consequences of empiricism were not drawn by the
systematic moralists, but by other so-called Freethinkers who wrote
more for the general public. Such was the case especially with the most
influential among them, Lord Bolingbroke, the chief representative of
deism (ob. 1751), [237] who declared Plato to be half crazy, and all
philosophy proper to be mere narrow-mindedness. The moral law is, as
the law of nature, clearly revealed to all men through the observation
of existence. All morality rests on self-love; this law incites to
marriage, to the family, and to society, and to the duties that result
therefrom. The end of all effort is the greatest possible happiness,
that is, the greatest possible number of pleasure-sensations. But this
natural law teaches Bolingbroke some very strange things; shamefulness,
e. g., is only an aspiration of man to be something better than the
brute, or it is a mere social prejudice; polygamy is not immoral; on
the contrary, it harmonizes with the law of nature, because it effects
a, greater increase of the race; wedlock-communion is disallowable only
between parents and children; all other degrees of relationship admit
of it, for the highest law and end of marriage is propagation. The
pretentious superficiality of this writer obtained for him in the
"cultured" world the highest repute.
English moralism checked itself, for the most part, at half-ways; it
found as yet too much moral consciousness alive among the masses, not
to feel bound in general to hold fast still to a respectable code of
morality, even though at the cost of the consequentiality of the
system. In France, on the contrary, the demoralization had made
sufficient progress among the cultivated classes to be enabled to throw
off all reserve, also in the sphere of theory. The scanty remnants of
religious and moral contents still retained in the freethinking ethics
of Englishmen, had to be thrown out, in the further fermenting process,
as discoloring dregs, in order that the unmingled wisdom-beverage of
the natural man might attain to its life-giving purity; deistic
moralism had to pass over into atheistic materialism. The French ethics
of frivolity became, also for German ears, a sweet-sounding music; and
French parasites at the little German ducal courts charged themselves
with the task of distilling the decoction of trans-Rhenane moral
notions also into the lower strata of the German population.
Shaftesbury and Hutcheson had endeavored to, secure the innate moral
feeling against the threatening overthrow of all morality, by placing
over against the feeling for self, a feeling for the social whole,
either as of like worth, or as of a still higher validity. This course
was arbitrary, and not grounded in their fundamental principle; for
every man is, as an individual, the nearest to himself. And a feeling
inborn in me relates, after all, first and last, always to myself; as a
merely natural being inspired by no higher idea, I feel for others only
in so far as I am myself interested in them. Feeling clings absolutely
to the subject, and egotism is the inner essence of any natural moral
feeling which is not willing to be dominated by an idea. In order to
this further development of ethics, there was need of a still further
carrying out of empiricism as a theory. This we meet with in Condillac,
a French nobleman, an abbot and prince-educator,--one of the most
superficial and, therefore, most preferred authors of the middle of the
eighteenth century.--All knowledge rests on sensuous impressions; man
is acted upon and filled with spiritual contents, simply as a machine,
through outward impressions; of all the senses the sense of touch is
the highest; it alone gives us certainty as to the objective reality of
things, and raises man above the brute. with whom in other respects he
is essentially identical. The pleasure and displeasure of impressions
work desire and repugnance, and hence awaken and determine the will. It
is incredible what stupid absurdities Condillac offers in the name of
metaphysics; and it is a significant index of the spirit of the age,
that he was one of the most influential and feted writers of France.
The ethics of this world-theory was easily inferred, and was pronounced
with open boldness. Long previously Gassendi (of Paris, ob. 1655) had
presented the satisfaction of desire as the end of human life, this
satisfying is rational when it is orderly, natural, and not excessive;
and it effects peace of heart and painlessness of body. He recommended,
consequentially enough, the doctrine of Epicurus as the highest
wisdom.--The full and clear consequence of empiricism, however, was
drawn by Helvetius, who expressly based his doctrine on the, by him,
highly esteemed theory of Locke. As an affluent gentleman of leisure,
and living only for his pleasures, he became greatly renowned by his
work, De l'esprit (1758), throughout the luxurious fashionable circles
of Europe. His book was proscribed in France, but all the more
circulated throughout Europe; and the author, in his travels to
different courts, especially the German ones, was feted as a great
philosopher. His second more important work, (a further development of
the first one,) De l'homme, appeared only after his death (1772). The
highly-colored and daring tone of his writings, with their rich setting
of wit, and of indelicate anecdotes, furnishes a clear image of the
then prevalent spirit of the higher classes of cultivated Europe.--All
thoughts, according to Helvetius, spring from sensuous perceptions, and
our knowledge extends only so far as the senses extend; of any thing
super-sensuous, and hence also of God, we know nothing. The motives to
activity are essentially the passions, which spring from our
inclination to pleasure and our aversion to displeasure. The
fundamental stimulus of all moral activity is self-love, the expression
of which is, in fact, the passions; nothing great is accomplished
without great passion; he who is not passionate is stupid. As, now, all
thoughts rest on sensuous impressions, so rest also all self-love and
all passion, and hence all morality, on the impulses of sensuous
pleasure; and even the decision as to truth is entirely dependent on
the interest of the self-loving subject. Should the case arise, says
Helvetius, that it would be more advantageous for me to regard the part
as greater than the whole, then I would in fact assume this to be the
case. The good, or the moral, is neither an absolutely valid idea, nor
is it any thing arbitrarily assumed, but the determination as to it
rests in the experience of the individual; but experience teaches that
each regards as good that which is useful to him; and consequently each
judges of the morality of actions simply according to his own interest;
hence the best actions would be such as corresponded to the interest of
all men; but there are no such actions. Hence we must limit our view;
and, on closer examination, we find to be truly good that which
promotes the interest not merely of the individual but of our nation;
the political virtue is the highest, and the political transgression,
the highest sin; that which does not contribute to the public good of
the nation, as, for example, the so-called religious virtues, is not a
virtue, and what does not conflict therewith is not a sin; virtues
which profit nothing must be regarded as virtues of delusion, and be
discarded. Hence, true ethics has its norm essentially in the civil
law-book and in public utility; that which lies outside of these is,
for the most part, morally indifferent; when it is useful to the public
weal, even inhumanity is just. The motive to moral activity remains,
even in this so narrowly limited sphere, self-love; the thought of
doing the good for the good's sake, is antiquated and exploded. To
sacrifice my own private advantage to that of the public, I am under no
obligation; rather must I seek in the best manner possible to combine
the two. When any one helps an unfortunate, out of compassion, this is
only self-love, for he simply aims to rid himself of the sight of
misery, which is unpleasant to him. Ethics is utterly fruitless and
vain so long as it does not definitely regard personal interest, and
hence sensuous pleasure and the avoidance of sensuous pain, as the
highest principle of morality; nothing is forbidden but what causes us
pain; with religion, ethics has nothing whatever to do. Morality is
therefore also, at different times and under different relations,
essentially different; there is no crime which under some
circumstances--(when it should be useful)--would not also be right.
True, the vicious man seeks also his own advantage, and the only
trouble in the matter is that he deceives himself as to the means
thereto; hence, he is to be pitied because of his error, but not to be
despised. The fact that among all nations, some actions are regarded as
virtuous which offer no profit whatever for this life, is simply a
hurtful delusion. As self-interest is the ground of all virtue, hence
it is also entirely legitimate that the state should stimulate its
citizens to obedience by rewards and punishments; in fact, it thereby
hits upon the solely correct moral motives to the good; rewards and
punishments are the gods which create virtue. All statesmanship
consists in awakening the self-love and self-interest of men, and in
thereby stimulating them to virtue.
The intellectual revolution--represented by great names--made sweeping
advances in France and also in the fashionable world servilely
dependent on France, at the courts of the rest of Europe, and
especially of Germany,. and had already long since reached its ultimate
results, before the political revolution enabled also the lower classes
to speak their word in the same sense. It was fashionable at this
period to designate by the word "esprit" (as the privilege of the
giddy, freethinking world) that which was subsequently called
"revolution" among the great masses, and which was, in fact, simply the
consequence of the former. Every thing which hitherto had passed as
philosophy, (with the exception of the Epicurean), was regarded as
nonsense; the most stupid superficiality, provided only that it
ridiculed sacred things, passed as philosophy; wit and frivolous
fancies took the place of earnest science. The "philosophical" century
sank, in the appreciation of really philosophical thought, deeper than
even the earlier and as yet barbarous Middle Ages had sunk. The higher
the encomiums they heaped upon what they called "spirit," so much the
more utter became the spiritual vacuity; men extolled reason more
pretentiously than ever, and yet they placed in her temple, as goddess,
a public woman. Rousseau and Voltaire passed as the profoundest
thinkers of all ages; their spiritual triumphs and attainments were
unparalleled, and Voltaire's renown transcended in glory all renown
ever heaped upon an author. The history of the human mind has no second
century to refer to in which un-reason dominated with such complete
omnipotence.
Jean Jacques Rousseau produced indeed no system of ethics, but he
exerted in the sphere of moral opinion an influence such as no author
before or after him ever exerted, and felt even up to the present
day,--not indeed because he uttered deep thoughts, but because he gave
expression to what lay in the spirit of the age,--himself an utterly
ungenuine character--under the form of a severe moralist undermining
all morality, under the form of earnest thought bidding defiance to all
philosophy and science, under the form of a censorious sage, in
hermit-like seclusion from the world, preparing soft cushions for the
vices of the "cultured" great. And precisely in this his peculiar
character he chimed in with the tastes and desires of the age; he
simply made, in the dike of the as yet somewhat cramped current of the
age, the little breach through which its pent-up waters dispersed
themselves over the low-lands so as subsequently, as morasses, to
exhale the pestilential miasma of revolution. Of scientific
ground-thoughts there can in Rousseau be no question; bold assertions
and rhetorical phrases take almost every-where the place of scientific
demonstration. The writings of Locke exerted upon him the greatest
influence; sensuous experience is also for him the source of all ideas.
His moral views receive their proper commentary in his utterly immoral
life. His Contrat social (1761) became the theoretical basis of the
French Revolution; his narrow-minded sophistical work, Emile (1762) had
an immeasurable and bewildering influence on education, and is yet
to-day the catechism of all un-Christian schemes of education.
Rousseau's religion of nature, as he called it, is a shallow idealess
deism grouped around the three thoughts: God, virtue, and immortality,
in high sounding rhetorical phrase. He bases morality upon the natural
conscience, which, as a direct feeling for the moral, renders
unnecessary all instruction and all science as to the moral, and guides
man with unerring certainty. All immorality springs simply from
"civilization," and from perverted education; true education consists
in non-educating. Let the child be simply let alone in its naturalness;
let it be guarded against perverting influences, and then it will
spontaneously develop itself as normally as a tree in a good soil. In
the nature of man there lies nothing evil whatever; all natural
impulses are good; every child is by nature still just as good as the
first man was in coming from the hands of the Creator. The sole inborn
passion is self-love, and this is good. The child should learn every
thing through personal experience, and nothing through obedience; the
words "obey" and "command" must be erased from its dictionary, as also
the words "duty" and obligation;" the child must by all means be kept
in the belief that it is its own lord, and that its educator is
subordinate to it. Make the child strong, and it will be good; for all
defects, the educator alone is to blame. The sole moral instruction for
the child is: "Do wrong to no one;" of love and religion there should,
in education, be no question whatever. Instruction should by no means
be imparted before the twelfth year, and even after this period only at
the desire of the pupil; at twelve years it should yet be incapable of
distinguishing its right hand from its left. It should never believe or
do any thing on the mere word of another, but must always do simply
what it has found to be good from personal experience. The end of this
"inactive" method of education, as Rousseau himself designates it, is
the end of human life, namely, freedom; but true freedom consists in
this, that we wish nothing other than what we can do or obtain; and in
this case we will also do nothing other than what pleases us; and this
is always the right. Hence the essence of all morality is the giving
free scope to our natural propensities. The highest moral law is; "seek
thine own highest welfare with the least possible detriment to others."
Christianity is the natural enemy of true morality and of human
society, for it desires the absolute purity of human nature,--directs
man away from the earthly, and preaches only servitude and tyranny.
These were sweet words for the ears of the great multitude, and they
did not die away unheeded, but found enthusiastic welcome.--Although
the almost apotheosized prince of the "philosophical" century,
Voltaire, whose pretended philosophy rests almost exclusively on Locke,
wrote both moral phrases and un-moral poems, yet in neither case has he
produced any thing peculiar or original, much less philosophical,
notwithstanding his frequent allusion to his "metaphysics." Morality,
he repeats time and again in the strongest affirmations, is entirely
independent of religious faith,--rests upon a natural innate impulse,
and is consequently in all men and in all ages, so soon as they use
their reason, uniform and the same. [238] Virtue or vice, the morally
good or evil, is always and every-where that which is either useful or
hurtful to society; incest between father and daughter may, under
circumstances, be allowable, and even a duty, as, for example, when a
single family constitutes an isolated colony; falsehoods uttered out of
a good purpose are legitimate, and the same holds good of almost every
thing that is in ordinary cases unallowable. Divinely-revealed moral
laws there are none; but a certain benevolence toward others is inborn
in man, at the same time with self-love. To the objection, that with so
uncertain a basis, one might seek his own welfare by stealing, robbing,
etc., Voltaire has the ready answer: then he would get hanged. [239]
And all this he calls metaphysics.
What little of a superficial religious consciousness had yet remained
with Rousseau and Voltaire, entirely vanished with the Encyclopedists,
and especially with Diderot (ob. 1784). Diderot endeavored, above all
things, entirely to divorce morality from religion; the latter is for
the former rather a hindrance than a help. In morality itself he
wavers, undecided, between naturalistic determinism and a very
superficial society-morality. The Epicurean view he regards as the most
true. All the vices spring from covetousness, and hence they can all be
got rid of by the abolition of property, by a community of goods; for
the discovery of this universal panacea of human ills, he takes to
himself great credit.--Naturalistic morality appears in its most gross
form and in shameless nakedness in La Mettrie (ob. 1751), [240] whom
even Voltaire despised, but whom Frederick the Great, from some
incomprehensible caprice, made his reader and daily companion (from
1748 on), and even nominated him, ignoramus that he was, to membership
in the Academy of Sciences. Religion and morality stand in
irreconcilable antagonism to philosophy; they rest only in politics,
and serve for the bridling of the masses who are yet unable to rise to
philosophy, just as, for a similar reason, there is as yet need also of
hangman and death-penalties. But humanity as a whole cannot be happy
until all the world embraces atheism. Religion has poisoned nature and
cheated her out of her rights. Where the truth, that is, atheism,
prevails, there man follows no other law than that of his particular
natural propensity. And thus alone can he be happy. Man is not
essentially different from the brute, not even by any peculiar moral
consciousness; he stands in many respects below the brute, and has only
this advantage, that he has a greater number of wants, whereby a
greater culture becomes possible. Man--as sprung from the mingling of
different races of animals, and as formed from matter of the same kind
as that constituting the brute, save only that it has simply gone
through a higher fermentation-process, and as being of a merely
material organism (for the soul is only the brain, which is itself only
a slightly organized piece of dirt),--is simply a mere machine, and is
set into motion by outward impressions, and hence he is necessarily
determined in all his volitions, and is not responsible for any of his
actions. Repentance is folly; for individual man is not at fault for
his being a poorly constructed machine. Hence also we should not
despise the seemingly vicious, nor judge them severely. As, at death,
all is over, hence we should enjoy the present as much as we possibly
can. To defer an enjoyment when it offers itself, is the same as
waiting at a banquet without eating, until all are done; enjoyment, and
indeed primarily and principally, sensuous enjoyment, is our highest
and sole destination.--It was precisely during his stay in Potsdam that
La Mettrie wrote his most audacious glorification of the wildest and
even unnatural wantonness. His writings were very much sought after in
the higher circles of society.
The total result of materialistic ethics is summed up in a work written
very probably by Baron Holbach with the cooperation of Diderot and
other Encyclopedists: System de la nature, par Mirabaud (1770),
constituting the gospel proper of atheism, and presenting nakedly and
undisguisedly, in a dull and spiritless form, the results of the
philosophy of Locke, Hobbes, and Condillac, who are in fact expressly
cited as sources. As man is only a material machine, hence there is
between the physical and the moral life no difference; all thinking and
willing consist simply in modifications of the brain. All propensities
and passions are purely corporeal states--are either hatred or love,
that is "repulsion or attraction;" the absurd doctrine of the freedom
of the will has been invented simply to justify the equally absurd one
of divine providence. Man is only a part of the great world-machine,
determined in all his movements,--a blind instrument in the hands of
necessity; the concession of freedom even to a single creature would
bring the whole universe into confusion; hence whatever takes place
takes place necessarily. Religion and its ethics are the greatest
enemies of man, and occasion him only torment. The system of nature
alone makes man truly happy,--teaches him to enjoy the present as fully
as possible, and gives him, in relation to every thing which is not an
object of enjoyment, the indifference that is essential to his
happiness. Hence there is no need of a special moral system. Its
fundamental principle would necessarily be: "enjoy life as much as thou
canst;" but every man does this already of himself without instruction.
Self-love, one of the manifestations of the law of gravitation, is the
highest moral law. The chief condition of happiness is bodily health;
the true key of the human heart is medicine; the most effectual
moralists are the physicians; he who makes the body sound, makes the
man moral. Every man follows by nature and necessarily his own special
interest, a course of conduct which in fact follows immediately and
necessarily from his bodily organization; vice and crime are but
consequences of morbid corporeality,--are not guilt but necessity.
Hence only the unwise can repent; in any case repentance is only a pain
arising from the fact that an act has had bad consequences for us. Now
as the instincts and passions are the sole motive of human action,
hence we can influence other men only by working upon their passions.
Each is obligated only to that which procures him an advantage. Hence a
good man is he who satisfies his passions in such a manner that other
persons must contribute to this satisfaction so as that they also
thereby satisfy their own passions and interests. Hence the atheist is
necessarily a good man, whereas religion makes men bad in that it
embitters to them the passions. That suicide is held as legitimate for
those who are weary of life, is a matter of course.--This godless
world-theory disseminated itself in rapid development deeper and deeper
among the masses; and the ten years of the French Revolution are the
practical realization of this ethics as a social power.
It is characteristic of the difference of national spirit that the
naturalistic tendency could not, in its stark crudity, take hold upon
the German people, but came to expression only in association with
other higher principles, with Christianly-moral elements, namely, in
the Rationalistic "illuminism" of the eighteenth century. Open unbelief
proper and materialistic morals spoke, in Germany, almost exclusively
French; and the sycophant court-atheists were too much despised to find
hearty favor with the masses. The demoralizing revolution which
proceeded front the upper classes, met with a powerful opposition in
the German national spirit. Even while a popular school of poetry
divorced itself from the Christian consciousness, still this school
held fast to the antithesis of the spiritual and the naturalistic
world-theories, recognizing the former as the higher; "let him who
cannot believe, enjoy; let him who can believe, deny himself."--The
superficial deistic ethics attains to greater influence in Germany than
the materialistic, though without giving rise to any important
scientific works. On the basis of the uncorrupted purity of human
nature there was developed a superficial utilitarian morality without
deeper contents; and this morality was looked upon as the essence
proper of Christianity. Basedow's demagogic attempt at world-renovation
by a new system of education based on Rousseau, became very soon too
ridiculous to exert any enduring influence, Steinbart [241] (professor
of theology at Frankfort on the Oder) in his utterly superficial but
greatly lauded System of Pure Philosophy or Christian Doctrine of
Happiness (1778, '80, '86, '94), regarded the chief contents of the
Christian religion and of Christian ethics as simply the answering of
the question: "What have I to learn, and to do, in order to have the
greatest possible sum of pleasure?" "Happiness is the end of the entire
human life, and consists in the heart-state of a continuous contentment
and of frequently recurring enjoyment." Every man is by nature
perfectly good and pure, though indeed not as a spirit but as an
animal, and he rises only gradually from the animal to the man.
Self-love is the ground of all morality, and morality is the infallible
way to a state of enjoyment; of a checking of self-love there can be no
occasion; hence Christian virtue is "nothing else than a preparedness
to enjoy one's existence to the highest degree, under all
circumstances"; the highest state of enjoyment is of course only in the
life after death, where alone we can really survey the consequences of
our beneficent, meritorious actions; "but our glimpses into that life
encourage us to a better using of the present one, and the fullest
enjoyment of this life enlarges our receptivity for higher degrees of
happiness in the future world." This is the pure doctrine of Jesus,
which unfortunately has, for eighteen centuries, been lost sight
of.--Steinbart was favored in the highest degree by the Prussian
government, and aided in his plan of founding a "general normal school
in which teachers might be educated for the true enlightenment of the
nations."
It was only the revival of the Pantheism of Spinoza in the nineteenth
century that gave rise, in Germany, to a scientific form of ethics; but
also this system, though of a far higher character than the
freethinking of France, yet, in its later unscientific offshoots,
ultimated in like results; and the fact that in our own day a
resuscitated materialism, resting, however, more on natural science
than on philosophy, presents us again with the ethics of the "System of
Nature," is certainly no indication of progress in spiritual
development, though indeed an evidence of a progress of the
intellectual blight consequent on the too great stagnation of the
religious and philosophical spirit in the present age.
__________________________________________________________________
[228] Especially in his Leviathan, 1651, and in his De cive. 1647;
comp. Lechler: Gesch. des engl. Deismus, 1841, p. 67 sqq.
[229] De legibus naturae, 1672, 83, 94.
[230] Systema intellectuale, etc., in English in 1678.
[231] Enchiridion ethicum, in his Opp. omn., 1679, 2 fol.
[232] Essay on the Human Understanding, 1690.
[233] The Religion of Nature Delineated, 1724.
[234] Characteristicks, (1711), 1714; comp. Lechler, p. 240 sqq.
[235] Treatise of Human Nature, 1730; Essays, etc., 1742.
[236] Institutes of Moral Philosophy, 1769.
[237] Works, 1754.
[238] Oeuvres, Paris, 1830, t. 31, p. 262; t. 12, p. 160; t. 42, p.
583.
[239] Ibid., t. 37, p. 336; t. 38, p. 40.
[240] L'homme machine; L'art de jouir., 1751.
[241] System der reinen Phil. oder Glueckseligkeitslehre des
Christenthums.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLII.
The theological ethics of the evangelical church of the eighteenth
century made but a quite temperate use of German philosophy before the
time of Kant, and insisted but little (not without some influence from
Pietism) on the antithesis of the two evangelical churches in the
sphere of ethics. Buddaeus furnished the first scientific system of
ethics, though in its philosophical elements it is rather eclectic.
Stapfer, Baumgarten and others, applied the Wolfian philosophy in
pedantic minuteness to Christian ethics; while Mosheim constructed it
more upon a purely Biblical basis, and upon that of practical
life-experience. Toward the close of the century the superficiality of
Rationalism began already to make itself felt.
Francis Buddaeus of Jena, one of the most learned and sound theologians
of the eighteenth century, a man of comprehensive philosophical culture
and who wrote also a thoughtful, evangelically-inspired system of
practical philosophy (Elementa philosophiae practicae, 1697, and
often), prepared the way, with his Institut. theologiae moralis (1712,
'23, 4to.; in German as "Introduction to Moral Theology," 1719), for a
more thorough, systematic treatment of ethics. The rich, carefully and
some times rather lengthily treated subject-matter rests upon sound
Scripture exegesis and careful observation of human life. Influenced
somewhat by Spener, this writer combines practical sense with a
scientific spirit. He begins at once with the thought of the corruption
of human nature and with that of divine grace, and hence gives not a
general philosophical, but only a specifically-Christian system of
ethics, in view of man as regenerated. The ground-thought of morality
is: man must do every thing which is essential to a constant union with
God and to the restoration of God's image, and must avoid the contrary
thereof. The whole subject-matter is distributed, (1), into moral
theology (in the narrower sense of the word), which treats of the
nature of regeneration and sanctification in their collective
development,--(2) into jurisprudentia divina, which treats of the
divine laws and of the duties resting thereupon,--and (3) into the
doctrine of Christian prudence, which presents the practical carrying
out of the moral in detail, and especially by clergymen. For the future
development of evangelical ethics, the thorough treatment of the first
part is especially valuable; Buddaeus finds in Christian ethics not
merely the manifestation, but also the progressive development of the
spiritual life of the regenerated. He presents as chief virtues: piety,
temperateness and justness. (Buddaeus has been much used by other
writers, also by J. J. Rambach, 1739, and by J. G. Walch, 1747).
The Reformed divine, John F. Stapfer of Bern made, in his rather
comprehensive than scientifically-important system of ethics (1757), a
very moderate use of the Wolfian philosophy. The earlier
Calvinistically-rigorous spirit is here already very much modified.
Sigismund Jacob Baumgarten (of Halle, a brother of the philosopher)
follows, in his discursive "Theological Ethics" (1767, 4to.), the
painfully-minute manner of Wolf, which is applied also in his numerous
other writings, and which leaves absolutely nothing unsaid, not even
that which every reader could supply for himself; and this pedantic
discursiveness detracts considerably from the otherwise real
thoroughness of the treatment.--(The Wolfian philosophy was applied to
theological ethics by Canz (S: 40), by Bertling [1753], and by Reusch
[1760]; J. C. Schubert [1759, '60, '62] is more independent.)--The not
sufficiently prized P. Hanssen: (of Schleswig-Holstein) gave in his
"Christian Ethics" (1739, '49) a very clear and sound presentation of
the evangelical doctrine,--a work which gives evidence of a truly
philosophical spirit, and protests against the one-sidedness of Wolf;
in the first general part, he develops the threefold form of the moral
life--in the state of innocence or perfection, in the state of sin, and
in that of regeneration. T. Crueger (of Chemnitz) develops, in his
Apparatus theol. moral. Christi et renatorum (1747, 4to.), the thought
of the moral pattern as found in Christ, and hence of an ethical
Christology and of its application to the life of Christians, with
great profoundness and uncommon erudition, though in a somewhat stiff,
over-carefully-classified, scholastic form.
Mosheim's comprehensive "Ethics of the Holy Scriptures," [242] though
in its sometimes almost hortatory discursiveness, often unnecessarily
detailed, yet differs from works of the Wolfian and the earlier schools
by a beautiful, animated and popular form, free of all stiff
scholastic-elements, and gives evidence of a close observation of life,
of impartial and profound study of the Scriptures, of a simple, mild,
evangelical spirit, and of a thorough and careful attention to details;
but the scientific demonstration and development are frequently feeble,
and, despite all his insisting on the rationality of Christian
morality, the philosophical element is almost entirely overlooked; the
antitheses of view, as developed in the two churches, are not made
prominent. The whole subject is distributed into the consideration of
the inner holiness of the soul, and into that of the outer holiness of
the walk. Miller's continuation of the work, though furnished with more
learned apparatus, is less mature and also less inviting in
form.--Crusius, whom we have already mentioned as a philosophical
moralist, wrote also a "Moral Theology" (1772) which is inspired with a
philosophical spirit, and gives evidence. of deeply Christian
knowledge.--Toellner, 1762, wrote rather on the treatment of ethics
than on ethics itself,--already quite Rationalistic; Reuss, 1767,
uncompleted; the work of G. Less, (1777, and subsequently), is not
important; H. C. Tittmann, 1783, '94, endeavors to be strictly Biblical
but is without depth; Morus' work, 1794, is imperfectly edited from his
lectures,--partially based on Crusius, frequently rationalistic. The
Englishman, Thomas Stackhouse, wrote on Christian ethics in a plain and
Biblical spirit, treating mainly only of general questions. The
Reformed divine, Endemann of Marburg, closes the series of Reformed
moralists (1780), but he bears the distinctively Reformed character
only in very feeble traits.
__________________________________________________________________
[242] 1735-70; continued by Miller, 1762; Miller wrote also a special
Einleit. in die theol. Moral, 1772, and a short Lehrbuch, 1773.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLIII.
In the system of Kant philosophical ethics put off the naturalistic or
subjectivistic character; the moral idea attained, on the basis of the
freedom of the will, to an objective significancy, and became an end
per se, and not simply a means to the end of individual happiness.
Independently of the theoretical reason and of the God-consciousness,
the moral idea became the presupposition and basis of all speculation
on the supersensuous, and hence also of rational religion. The
universal validity of the moral law became the formal, and, pretendedly
also, the material principal of morality. But the one-sided rational
character of this morality left essential phases of the moral
unaccounted for; and the merely formal character of the moral law
admitted of no consequential carrying-out in detail.--The application
of Kantian ground-thoughts to theological ethics was of two-fold
effect,--raising it indeed above the utilitarian ethics of the
"illuministic" current, but robbing it, in its divorce from religion,
of a part of its Christian character.
Previous philosophical ethics had gone astray in two respects. The two
equally true and necessary thoughts, that, on the one hand, the moral
idea has a universally valid significancy, that it cannot be dependent
in its obligating character on the chance caprice of the individual
subject, and that yet, on the other, it has in fact for its end the
perfection of the person, and hence also his happiness, had been
one-sidedly held fast to, each for itself. Naturalistic Pantheism gave
validity simply to the objective significancy of the moral,--absolutely
annihilated the freedom of the will, and conceived by the moral law as
a mere fatalism unalterably determining every individual; and when,
with the champions of materialistic atheism, this notion of the unfree
determination of the individual, ultimated practically in an entire
letting-loose of the passions, it was not without the countenance of
strict consistency with the ground principle. The opposite tendency
proceeded from the subject, emphasizing his free will, and hence
looking less to the ground than to the end of the moral activity; man
was to be determined by nothing which does not leave him absolutely
free, which does not contribute to his own individual advantage, in
other words, by the thought of individual happiness. While the first
tendency undermined morality by the fact that it annihilated the moral
subject, sinking him into a mere unfree member of the great
world-machine, the other tendency imperiled morality in its innermost
essence, in a no less degree, by the fact that it required no
self-subordination of the subject under a per se valid idea, but
emphasized the absolute claims of the individual personality, so that
in fact in their ultimate consequences the two opposite tendencies
resulted, equally, in the letting-loose of the individual in his;
unbridled naturalness.--Christian ethics could not, save by letting
itself be led astray by philosophy, fall into either of these errors.
That the moral idea is valid per se, that it has an unconditional,
universally-obligating significancy, is here a point settled from the
very start, inasmuch as it conceives this idea as the holy will of God.
He who inquires first as to himself, and only afterward as to the will
of God, has absolutely reversed the moral relation. On the other hand,
it is, in Christian ethics, not in the least doubtful, that this will
of God has in view the perfection of man, and hence also his perfect
happiness,--that man, in fulfilling God's will becomes also truly
happy, and does not lose his freedom but brings it to perfection.--It
was high time, toward the end of the eighteenth century, to set bounds
to the decline of philosophical ethics; the two opposed currents had
attained to their last corrupt consequences, subversive of all
morality. The "eudemonistic" tendency could oppose nothing else to the
frivolous enjoyment-seeking and conscienceless self-seeking of the
materialistic tendency, than an insipid utilitarian morality
essentially identical at bottom with the other, and which differed from
it only by an air of external decency, but not by profundity of thought
or moral worthiness. It was a great forward-step of philosophical
thought-development when Kant, with mighty hand, dashed to atoms both
these moral structures, and built up a new firmer-based system;
although his own age, in its enthusiasm for him, no less than he
himself, sadly deceived themselves as to the perfection and durability
of the same.
His first and by no means unimportant service consists in the fact that
basing himself primarily on the skepticism of Hume, he annihilated, at
a single stroke, all confidence in previous methods of philosophizing,
whether speculative or empirical, and deprived both empiricism and the
pure theoretical reason, in so far as it had thus far been developed,
of all right to pretend to establish, in respect to the supersensuous,
or the ideal, any thing whatever as philosophical knowledge. Though in
his "Critique of the Pure Reason" (1781) Kant had ascribed to the
speculative reason, in the sphere of theoretical knowledge, really only
the function of formal thought or logic, he yet attained in fact to a
positive knowledge of reality in the sphere of the practical reason,
that is, in that of morality. [243] Reason is not merely a cognizing,
but also a volitionating power; hence there is not merely a rational
knowledge of that which is, namely, theoretical or pure reason, but
also of that which, through rational volition, ought to be, namely,
practical reason; the former seeks in every given reality for the
rational beginning, the ground; the practical reason seeks for the
rational goal, the end. This end can, as a rational one, not be
fortuitous, arbitrary, or doubtful, but must have an unconditional
absolutely-valid character. The office of reason is here entirely other
than in the sphere of pure theoretical cognition; the practical reason
directs itself toward something which is not yet real, but which should
through reason become real, and which, consequently depends upon
reason; hence reason is here, as in contrast to the other sphere, in
its own sphere proper, where it itself actively creates its own
object,--is free and responsible. Man, as a spirit, can choose whatever
object of action he pleases, but as a rational spirit he should set
before himself only a rational, and hence absolutely valid object. As
he acts here in a sphere determined by himself, hence he is dependent
only upon himself; in willing and acting, man is free. A rational end
is such a one as must be recognized by every rational man, as his own
end; for reason is not a merely individual quality, but is in all men
the same; hence the rationality of the end consists in its universal
validity. Hence the highest principle of all rational moral action is
the law: "act in such a manner that the maxim of thy conduct is adapted
to become a universal law for all men." (Maxim is here taken as the
subjective principle of moral action in contradistinction to the
objectively-valid law.) The obligatoriness of such action lies
exclusively in my rationality, and is hence entirely unconditional;
should I act otherwise I would not be rational; hence this law of the
reason is the "categorical imperative." I am here to inquire not after
my own happiness, but only after that which is rational; I ought to be
rational; to this end I need no other motive than my own rational
nature itself. To make my own happiness the end of my moral
activity-eudemonism-is irrational and immoral; for, because of the
fortuity of the outward conditions of happiness, and of the
heterogeneousness of claims upon happiness, the moral would be rendered
dependent upon accident and. caprice. The moral reason is absolutely
free only when it has absolutely within itself the law and the motive
of action, and where it makes itself dependent on no other conditions
not given within itself. "Autonomy" constitutes the essence of reason
and the dignity of human nature. Reason, in a practical law, determines
the will directly, and not by means of an intervening feeling of
pleasure or displeasure. To be happy is indeed the legitimate and
naturally-necessary striving of every rational being, but such a ground
for action can be known and recognized only empirically, whereas the
moral law must necessarily have objective unconditional validity. What
is good or evil cannot be known through any thing outside of reason,
but only through reason itself; but feelings of pleasure and
displeasure belong not to reason, but to the lower sphere of the
spirit-life.
Though morality as resting exclusively upon the categorical imperative
of the reason has not happiness for its motive, yet it earns a right to
happiness; virtue is the subjective fitness for and worthiness of
happiness, that is, for that condition of a rational being to whom, in
its entire existence, every thing goes according to wish and will, and
where consequently also the outward relations, including those of
nature, harmonize with the spiritual and moral reality of the person.
Neither virtue per se, nor happiness per se, but happiness as attendant
upon virtue, constitutes the true, perfect life-condition of man--his
highest good. The moral law per se is the sole true motive of the will,
while the idea of the highest good is an object of reason. Happiness
depends not merely upon our rational will, but also upon outer
conditions which lie not within our power. Hence happiness and virtue
are not identical (as the Greek moralists taught), but have primarily
nothing whatever to do with each other; the virtuous man may possibly
be very unhappy, namely, in so far as his condition is not dependent
upon himself,--which is in fact another proof that the striving after
virtue and the striving after happiness are not one and the same thing,
and that the striving after happiness per se is neither moral nor leads
to morality. In this distinction lies the dialectics of the practical
reason; happiness is not already included in virtue itself,--stands
therewith not in analytical but in synthetic connection; and hence we
are brought to the important question: how is the highest good
practically possible? that is, how can the two essentially different
elements of this good be brought into perfect harmony?--The highest
good is a demand of the practical reason; the demand of happiness for
the virtuous is just as rational as that of virtue itself; but its
realization rests not (as that of virtue) within our free power, but is
rather a morally necessary demand upon the moral government of the
world,--a "postulate of the practical reason." The demand, the
postulate, of a perfect morality which is not fully to be attained to
in this temporal, sensuously-limited life, and of a correspondent
happiness, that is, the demand of the highest good, finds its
fulfillment only in the assumption of an immortality of the rational
personality, and of a universal government of an all-wise, just and
almighty God. These postulates have, in virtue of the moral nature of
man, entire moral certainty, because it is only on the assumption of
their truth that the morally-rational life can attain to its goal. Thus
the moral law leads, through the idea of the highest good as the object
and end of the practical reason, to religion, that is, to the
conceiving of all duties as divine commands,--not indeed as arbitrary
prescriptions of an external will, but as essential and
morally-necessary laws of every free rational will per se, which,
however, must be looked upon as divine commands, because it is only on
the supposition of a moral Infinite Will that we can attain to the
highest good. Thus the moral striving is preserved from becoming
selfish, and the thought of happiness is not made the motive of
morality, but this motive is and remains absolutely nothing else but
the moral law; but, through the religious consciousness, our reason
attains to certainty and confidence in its moral aspirations. Ethics
will never become a doctrine of happiness, an art of becoming happy; it
becomes simply the doctrine as to how we may make ourselves worthy of
happiness. Hence the moral idea rests not upon religion, but,
conversely, religion rests upon the per se certain and necessary moral
idea,--follows by moral necessity from this idea. Man is not moral
because he is pious, but le is pious because he is moral. Morality in
so far as it rests upon the idea of a free and rational creature, has
no need, per se, of religion, because it has no end nor motive outside
of itself, but it leads necessarily to religion, and thus gives rise to
the idea of an almighty moral Lawgiver and world-Governor.--A special
carrying-out of philosophical ethics, Kant has not really given; we
find only a scanty approach thereto in his "Doctrine of Virtue," a work
of no great importance, and which already betrays marks of intellectual
senility. He contents himself mostly with the mere general
foundation-laying, whereas in fact, the chief question is: in how far
the general thoughts admit also of being carried out in detail? Duties
toward God belong, according to Kant, not to ethics proper, but to the
doctrine of religion. [244]
Unquestionably there lies in the ethics of Kant a decided advance
beyond antecedent philosophical ethics, and especially beyond the
empirical and naturalistic. He raised it from the low region of a
self-seeking or external utilitarian morality into the dignity of the
science of a purely rational idea transcending all mere
reality,--rejected all inferior self-seeking motives to morality, and
insisted on the unconditional validity and obligatoriness of the moral
law. While there lies in this a decided approximation to the Christian
conception of the moral, still the great difference of this from the
Christian view, and the inner weakness of the Kantian system as a
whole, are unmistakable. The independence of morality on religion which
follows from Kant's theory of rational knowledge, makes it impossible
for the moral principle to obtain positive contents; his much admired
moral law, and for which he puts forth such high claims, says in fact
absolutely nothing, and does not lead, save by arbitrarily calling in
aid from without, a single step further; and it is manifestly not
without good reason, that Kant developed no system of ethics proper.
The above-mentioned formula expresses not, properly speaking, the moral
law itself, but only the universal validity of the law which is yet to
be discovered,--says, in fact, nothing else than: "act according to
rational, and hence universally-valid law;" but if we now ask, what
then is this law, we are left entirely without answer. The application
of this formal principle becomes in each particular case an experiment;
an examination of the question: can I will that all men should act
according to the same maxim by which I act? But we have absolutely no
clue or criterion as to whence and on what basis the answer is to be
given, inasmuch as the moral law is utterly destitute of positive
contents; we could at best only start the inquiry as to what the result
would be in case all men acted as we; but this, as a judging of
morality by the result, would be in contradiction to the other moral
views of Kant, and would be the worst of all empiricism,--as in fact
not the real, but only the possible or probable result could be taken
into consideration. But in case, now, some one should, in view of some
per se immoral action, come to the manifestly possible, though
erroneous conviction, that such action is adapted to be practiced
universally, then such a person would be entirely unassailable and
unreformable from the stand-point of Kant, and thus an error in the
calculating understanding would jeopardize the entire moral conduct of
the person. And in fact Helvetius and La Mettrie affirmed without
hesitation, that their own maxim was adapted to be a universally valid
law; what could Kant then object to them, seeing that they recognized
his formal principle? The Kantian moral law, which he himself declared
to be purely' formal, is moreover incorrect even in formal respects.
Inasmuch as, according to Kant, a maxim is the subjective rule which
lies at the basis of my conduct, hence it is for that very reason per
se utterly unadapted to be made into a universal law for all men; a
maxim is the law as subjectively conditioned and shaped, and has in
fact, in its subjective form, validity only for this particular
subject. The moral maxim of an educator and guide is not adapted to be
also the maxim of him who is to be guided and led,--that of a warrior
cannot be that of a clergyman. Although it is true that the law which
forms the basis of my maxim must be universally valid, yet I cannot
derive the law from the maxim, but only the maxim from the law. Kant
gives not the contents of the law, but only the way in which the
contents may be found; this way, however, is in contradiction to his
entire system, and is not merely a purely empirical or rather
experimental one, but also an entirely false one. In the very attempt
at rejecting every merely individual element as determinative, Kant
exalts it in fact to the solely determining one.
Kant undertakes, now, actually to advance further by the aid of this
formal principle, and infers from it, as a second formula, the
principle: "act in such a manner as to consider and use rational
nature, that is, humanity in general, both in thy own person and also
in the person of every other one, always, at the same time, as an end,
and never merely as a means,"--namely, because rational nature is
personality, and personality is an end in itself. Kant himself admits
that this formula is merely formal; but precisely in this fact lies its
defectiveness, for it is just as impossible to attain to positive
contents from merely formal principles as to obtain a real value from a
purely algebraic equation. When the principle is only a mere empty
space which is first to be filled from without, and not the fountain
which unfolds itself into a stream, there is no possibility of
advancing a step-further. And hence, the above formula may be applied
equally well morally and immorally; the whole question depends on, what
the end is, for which I consider the person; it might in fact be an end
of Satanic malice. This second principle is, in its
arbitrarily-determined form (and which in fact embraces only a limited
part of morality) still less adapted to its purpose than the first,
with which in fact it stands in no logical connection.
Another wide-reaching defect of Kantian ethics is this, that morality
appears as a mere one-sided affair of the understanding, while the
heart entirely disappears, and is left utterly unexplained. This
one-sidedness results of course from the divorce of morality from
religion. It sounds plausibly, and is likewise very easily said, that
the good inust be done for its own sake, that the law of the reason
must be per se the direct motive to moral action; but as Kant
positively admits elsewhere the possibility that man can act also
against his better knowledge, and consequently against his conscience,
hence this undeniable fact proves that rational knowledge is not per se
a sufficient motive to moral action. The thought of love is wanting;
man can indeed act against his knowledge, but not against his love. It
is only in a love of the good that a sufficient motive for moral action
is found; but in this God-ignoring morality of the understanding, love
has no ground and no place. The love of the living God can enkindle
love, but an abstract thought cannot. Kant demands simply unconditional
obedience, but not love; he expressly declares that the law must often
be fulfilled even against our inclinations, yea, in the face of decided
repugnance; but this would amount only to an outward fulfilling of
duty. Kant's morality is possible only for beings who have in
themselves no manner of sin and no germ of sin; but so soon as even the
mere possibility of an already-existing sinfulness is admitted, this
ethical system loses all foundation; for both the certainty and also
the potency of the rational law as a motive, are thereby undermined.
And now Kant in fact admits,--in his remarkable work: "Religion within
the Limits of Pure Reason" (1792, '94)--(which, with the exception of
the one point here in question, became the catechism of
Rationalism)--the indwelling of an evil principle in man along-side of
the good one, a "radical evil in human nature," existing there already
anterior to any exercise of freedom,--a tendency to evil inhering in
all men without exception, as a subjective motive-power antecedent to
all action,--a peccatum originarium, which he describes with such dark
colors that even the strongest presentations of the orthodox doctrine
of hereditary sin would fail to depict the natural man so unfavorably;
but by this admission, Kant undermines his entire moral system, for he
thereby renders it entirely incomprehensible, how the mere knowledge of
the moral law (if indeed, under such circumstances, such a knowledge
could in fact be certain and unclouded) could be the motive to a
willing fulfillment of the same, seeing that, in fact, the love of man
is turned in the direction of evil. And though it is true that often
precisely in the contradictions of a system, the deeper presentiment of
the truth is in fact contained, still the system itself is thereby
overturned and proven untrue. And in general the antithesis of reason
and sensuousness, which extends through Kant's entire world-theory, is
in no respect rendered comprehensible, nor conciliated; it appears
simply as a fact, broadly prominent and defying all
comprehension.--Another peculiarity of Kantian ethics is its utter lack
of appreciation for history, although this was in fact characteristic
of the entire epoch; his ethics has history neither as its
presupposition, nor as its end, nor as its contents. Each man stands
unconnected with the historical development of the spirit,--is
considered only as a rational unity, and acts only as such; and there
is also a lack of all appreciation for an historical goal of the moral,
for a morality of humanity, for the rational moral significancy of
universal history.
The Kantian ground-principles of ethics were further carried out and
applied, with partial modifications, by Kiesewetter (1789), by K. C. E.
Schmid (1790), by the Roman Catholic Mutschelle (1788, '94), by Snell
(1805) in smooth, popular style, by L. H. Jacob (1794), by Heydenreich
(1794), by Tieftrunk (1789 and later), and by others.
Kant's moral system was, in its general character, very poorly adapted
to be applied to Christian ethics. Its absolutely unhistorical
character, its merely formal principle the application of which rests
simply on reflective calculation, its lack of any other moral motive
than the authority of an abstract law, and above all the reversing of
the Christian relation between morality and religion,--all this could
not, on its application to theological ethics, fail to endanger the
Christian character thereof, notwithstanding the fact that it opposed
with moral earnestness the insipid utilitarian morality of deistical
"illuminism." Precisely this divorcing of morality from religion--a
direct contradiction to the Christian view--was very much in harmony
with the dominant spirit of the age; and this in fact accounts in part
for the warm welcome which Kant's moral system met with also within the
sphere of the already deeply sunken theological world; and upon this
adoption of Kantian views rests the general development of the system
of Rationalism. The dogmatic element of the Christian
religion,--reduced now to the ideas of God, of immortality and of
Christ as the ideal of virtue,--sank into secondary importance--into
dependence on the morality given with full certainty in reason itself;
the historical phase of Christianity was without worth; Christ himself
was admired only in so far as he had realized in himself the moral law
given already in reason,--only as a teacher of "illuministic" morality,
and as a living exemplification of the same. It was not evangelical
faith that could lean with confidence upon Kant, but rather only the
anti-Christian tendency, which had thus far been represented in
"illuminism," and which now, in fact, received from Kant a more
earnestly-ethical and scientific character. We have no wish to deny
this scientific impulse given to theology; but when (as is done by
Daniel Schenkel in his Dogmatics) Kant is exalted into an essential and
necessary reformer of the whole field of evangelical theology, through
whom there has been wrought "a deep-reaching reaction on the part of
the ethical factor against the fanatical-grown doctrinism of the
dogmatics of the seventeenth century" which had annihilated all
interest in ethics,--such a manner of viewing the matter simply
indicates a forgetfulness of the fact that this orthodoxy in question
had been already for almost a century devoid of vitality, and that in
the meantime the philosophy of Wolf and the movement of Pietism had
given theology an entirely other direction, and that Pietism especially
had in fact almost one-sidedly emphasized the moral phase of
Christianity,--so that there could hardly have been need of the Kantian
moralism as the sole salvation against said doctrinal "fanaticism."
The most important theological presentations of ethics from the Kantian
stand-point are: J. W. Schmid ("Spirit of the Ethics of Jesus," 1790;
"Theological Ethics," 1793; "Christian Ethics," 1797), who presents the
founding of ethics on Kantian principles as the sole mission of Jesus;
J. E. C. Schmidt (1799), in a similar spirit; S. G. Lange; S. Vogel.
Staeudlin treated theological ethics (from and after 1798) with
constant changing of title and stand-point, until in his "New Treatise
on Ethics" (1813, third edition, 1825) he despaired of any superior
principle at all, and brought together, in a wavering eclecticism of
heterogeneous thoughts, a feeble whole. The self-metamorphosing C. F.
von Ammon repeated at first (1795-'98) simply the ethics of Kant, but
soon after (1800) broke entirely away from him, without yet getting rid
of his own superficiality.
__________________________________________________________________
[243] Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten, 1785; Kritik der
praktischen Vernunft, 1788, the chief work of the Kantian form of
ethics; Metaph. Anfangsgruende der Rechtslehre, 1797; Metaph. Anf. der
Tugendlehre, 1797.
[244] Met. d. Sitten, ed. 1838, p. 355 sqq.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLIV.
The philosophy of Fichte, resting upon Kant, but, with rigid
consequentiality, proceeding beyond him, manifested itself'
predominantly upon the ethical field. Fichte endeavored indeed to
complement the formal principle by a material one, but both of them are
so absolutely devoid of ethical contents, and the material principle
stands even so positively in antagonism to the contents of a really
moral consciousness, that an actual ethical development of these
principles became impossible; and the occasionally sound and
morally-earnest contents of the development in detail could only be
loosely associated with these principles, but not scientifically
developed from them. The immaturity of the entire stand-point rendered
it also impossible that any important ethical tendency in philosophy or
theology should arise therefrom. Fichte labored indeed fruitfully in a
time which had lost all solid philosophical foot hold, but he formed no
school.
Fichte's "System of Ethics according to the Principles of the Doctrine
of Science" (1798) is the most important attempt to apply the
ground-thoughts of the "Doctrine of Science" to one particular science.
We would do injustice to the Fichtean philosophy were we to consider
its unfruitful eccentricities apart from their connection with the
immediately-preceding philosophy; his philosophy is a
scientifically-justified and necessary advance beyond Kant. As Kant had
denied to the pure reason all objective knowledge, and also placed all
contents of the practical reason exclusively in the subject, and
derived the objective validity of the law of reason simply from the
subject; so Fichte simply made the validity of the individual subject,
the ego, all-predominant,--conceived all objective existence merely
negatively as the non-ego, and based cognition and volitionating
absolutely on the individual ego. The ego and the non-ego reciprocally
determine each other, and hence stand in reciprocal relation. The ego
posits itself as determined by the non-ego, that is, it cognizes; and
it posits itself, on the other hand, as determining in relation to the
non-ego, that is, it volitionates. The two are only two phases of the
same thing, inasmuch as the non-ego in its entire being exists only in
so far as it is posited by the ego, so that, strictly speaking, the ego
is its own object. The ego should in all its determinations be posited
only by itself,--should he absolutely independent of all non-ego. Only
as volitionating, as absolutely determining the non-ego, is the ego
free and independent. The ego as rational, should not permit itself to
be determined by any non-ego independent of it,--should be absolutely
independent, should make all non-ego absolutely dependent on
itself,--should exercise absolute causality upon the same. In freedom,
in volitionating, I am rational; and in that I determine my freedom as
an absolutely self-poised power, that is affirm my freedom, I am moral;
hence morality is self-determination to freedom. I should act freely in
order that I may become free, that is, I should act with the
consciousness that I determine myself in absolute independence. Hence
the formal principle of morality is: "act according to thy conscience,"
or "act always according to the best conviction of thy duty;" and as
material principle of ethics, there results this: "make thyself into an
independent or free being." "I should be a self-dependent being; this
is my destination; and the destination of things is, that I use them in
furthering my independence."
So absolutely void a principle of morality was probably never before
proposed. The formal principle expresses nothing other than: act
according to a yet unknown material principle. As to what the
"conscience" is and contains, we are as yet utterly uninformed; and the
material principle gives only the formal presupposition of morality,
but not its contents proper; I must in fact already be free, in order
to be able to act morally; freedom is not the contents, but the form,
of moral action. If this material principle is to be taken in its
entire significancy (and according to the philosophical presupposition
this is strictly consequential), then the very opposite of all morality
would be thereby expressed, namely, the acting absolutely without law,
the virtualizing of freedom in its simple form without contents, and
hence as mere individual caprice--amounting to a radical absolutism of
the individual subject. whereas all morality consists in fact most
essentially in a determining of individual freedom by an
unconditionally and objectively valid law,--is a subordinating of the
subject to a universally-obligating idea standing above the subject.
From Fichte's principle there results, not a system of ethics, but,
consequentially, only a theory of license. While it is true that in his
examinations of particular moral questions only loosely connected with
his system, Fichte shows himself, for the most part, high-minded and
earnest though indeed often strangely unpractical, still there lies, at
least in his ground-principle and in his general system, no
justification thereof. The cold, heartless, non-loving, intellectual
character of his discussions, is moreover not very well adapted to
awaken a moral interest.
What Fichte says on moral questions in his later, more rhetorical than
scientific, writings, bears in general the same unfruitful stamp,--
often widely misunderstanding the reality of life; we need only call to
mind the new system of education proposed in his much admired
"Addresses to the German Nation," which was presented with the
assumption of world-regenerating significancy, but at which, in fact,
no experienced educator can avoid smiling, and also his "Doctrine of
the State" which is even more than fantastical. The public often
allowed itself to be deceived by the ring of his periods, and by the
loftily enigmatic character of the expression. And it is doubtful
whether the fanaticism of the philosopher himself, or that entertained
for him by others, was the greater; certain it is, however, that very
soon there was a vast sobering-down of both. We will here only refer to
the fact that Fichte was personally very far from drawing the very
natural consequences of his dangerous moral principle, but that on the
contrary in his rhetorical "Direction for a Holy Life" (1807), in which
he already largely departs from his earlier views, and takes a rather
mystico-Pantheistic turn, he expressly presents, as the goal of
morality, complete "self-annihilation"--not, however, in the Christian
sense of moral self-denial, but rather in the sense of the religion of
India. The belief in our self-existence must be absolutely destroyed;
by this course the ego that was, sinks away into the pure divine
essence; we should not say: let the love and the will of God become
mine, because in fact there are no longer two; but only One, and no
longer two wills but simply one. So long as man yet desires to be any
thing himself, God comes not to him; but so soon as he annihilates
himself fully, utterly and radically, then God alone remains and is all
in all. In annihilating himself man continues in God, and in this
self-annihilation consists blessedness. The scientific justification of
this (in some respects) not unambiguous requirement, is not
given.--Notwithstanding the enthusiasm which Fichte's pretentious
philosophy excited, especially among the youth, it was unable to create
any long-enduring movements of thought. Feeble attempts to develop it
further, or, in fact, to apply it to Christian ethics (Mehmel:
"Elements," 1811), fell very soon into deserved oblivion.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLV.
Schelling, after passing from Idealism to Pantheism, and from Pantheism
to a dualistic Theosophy, endeavored, in this his third
development-period, to reconcile the freedom of the individual with the
sway of necessity, and indeed of necessary evil, by regarding
individual man as determining himself for evil in an ante-mundane
self-determination as influenced by a principle of darkness lying in
God himself,--but as necessary for the self-revelation of divine love.
The presentations of philosophical ethics which based themselves on
Schelling, have been unable to attain to any permanent
significancy.--The imperfectly developed anti-Schellingian philosophy
of Jacobi answered, in its ethical phases, more to the Christian view,
but it also has given rise to no real ethical system.
Schelling, appearing at first as a disciple of Fichte (at a period
which was very receptive and thankful for philosophy, even for a
youthfully unripe one), and then, in a more highly speculative spirit
passing beyond him, and also in constant metamorphoses progressively
rising above even himself,--never settled, never bringing any thing to
perfection,--did not develop in his earlier period any ethical system,
and, at furthest, only gave, on purely Pantheistic foundations, more or
less clear suggestions toward an ethical system; however, in his last
productive period (when, under the stimulation of Jacob Boehme and
Francis Baader, he plunged into a current of phantasy-speculation not
un-akin to Gnostic dualism), he furnished, in his "Philosophical
Inquiries as to the Essence of Human Liberty" (1809), a less
dialectically developed, indeed, than theosophically-portrayed, though
certainly deeply suggestive, presentation of the presuppositions and
bases of a system of philosophical ethics.--In God there exists, before
all reality, his eternal ground, his per se unintelligent nature, out
of which in all eternity the divine understanding generates itself as
the eternal antithesis to this ground-nature, which understanding
stands dominatingly over against this nature,--rules creatingly in it,
and by its acting upon it creates the finite world. Every creature has
consequently a twofold nature in itself: an essentially dark principle
corresponding to the nature-element in God, and also the principle of
light or understanding. In the highest creature, man, there exists the
entire power of the dark principle, namely, the unintelligent
self-will, and also the entire power of light--the deepest abyss and
the highest heaven. From the fact of his springing from the ground or
nature-element in God, man has in himself a principle relatively
independent of God, which, answering to this ground, is darkness, but
which becomes transfigured by the light, the spirit. But while in God
the two principles are indissolubly united, in man they are separable,
that is, man has the possibility of good and evil. The dark principle
can, as selfishness, separate itself from the light; self-will can
endeavor to be, as a separate will, that which it truly is only in
unity with the universal will,--can endeavor to be, also in the
periphery or as a creature, that which it is only in so far as it
remains in the divine center; this self-severing of self-hood from the
light is evil. Evil, as the dissevering of the two principles, is
necessary in order to a revelation of God; for if these principles
remained in man as unseparated as they are in God, then there would be
no difference between God and man, and God could not manifest his
omnipotence and love; but God must of necessity so reveal himself. For
this reason, the self-will of man is influenced by that dark
unintelligent principle in God,--man is tempted to evil, in order that
the will of divine love may find an opposing element, an antithesis,
wherein it can realize itself. Hence evil exists in man as a natural
tendency, for the reason that the disorder of his powers, as occasioned
by the awakening of self-will in the creature, communicates itself to
him in his very birth; and this ground-element in God works also
constantly in man, and excites his self-hood and individual will, in
order that in antithesis to it, the will of divine love may find scope
for action. Hence results a general necessity of sin, which, however,
by no means does away with the personal guilt of man, for the dark
ground in God realizes not evil as such, but only prompts thereto. The
actions of actual man result, indeed, with necessity from his essence,
but this essence man himself has determined by an act of
self-determination beyond all time and co-incidently with creation
itself. Man is indeed born in time, but he has, himself, determined his
life and character before his temporal life, yon side of time, in
eternity. Hence our actual actions are, on the one hand, necessary,
and, on the other, within our own responsibility. That Judas betrayed
Christ, was absolutely necessary; neither himself nor another could
have changed the matter; and nevertheless it was his own guilt, for he
had so determined himself from eternity. As every man now acts, so
acted he, as the identical person, already at the beginning of
creation; he is not simply now forming his character, but his character
is already formed. All men have determined themselves from eternity to
egotism and self-seeking, and are born with this dark principle
essential in their being. Evil, however, ought not to remain, but to be
overcome by the good principle.
Schelling promised a fuller development of these ground-thoughts, but
did not carry it out. The enthusiasm with which this philosophy of his
(which promised the solution of all the enigmas of existence), was
received,--an enthusiasm which was not dampened, but rather heightened
by its oracular tone and by the boldness of assertion which often
assumed in it the place of scientific proof,--gave occasion also in the
ethical field, to various, though mostly feeble, fruitless and soon
abandoned, attempts at a further carrying-out of his
ground-principles,--some of them in greater approximation to the
Christian consciousness; (Buchner, 1807; Thanner, 1811; Klein, 1811;
Moeller, 1819; Krause, 1810, though deviating considerably from the
master, and rather independent).--The facility with which other kindred
currents of thought admitted of being joined into Schelling's
theosophical outbursts, was indeed very tempting to the book-prolific
spirit of the age, but it also soon awakened in the sobering-down
spirit of the time a degree of distrust; and the fame obtained by the
master in his meteoric flight, showed itself less partial for his
zealously-imitating scholars; and when Daub, after welcoming, in their
regular order of succession, all the philosophies from Kant to Hegel,
advanced in his "Judas Iscariot" (1816), on the principles of
Schelling, to a sort of personality of evil, to a philosophical
Satanology, which indeed is yet far different from the Christian
view,--then, at last, the predominantly Rationalistic spirit of the age
began to lose confidence in the worth of the more recent philosophy as
a whole.
F. H. Jacobi of Munich, who, in antithesis to all Pantheism, took his
departure from the stand-point of the free personal spirit, has given
in his miscellaneous and unsystematic writings [245] only hints and
suggestions toward an ethical system. He opposed to the Pantheistic
philosophy, however, rather, merely the consciousness of its untruth
than a scientifically-constructed theory. He emphasized very strongly
the personal, moral will-freedom of man as opposed to all necessary
determination, without, however, creating for it a really scientific
basis, appealing here, as also in the case of the idea of the
personality of God, to inner spiritual experience--to feeling.
Morality, he based on a primitive feeling for the good, which is
independent of the striving after happiness; the good must be
accomplished for its own sake, and not as a means to happiness. In
general, Jacobi did not rise beyond the views of Rationalism.--The few
moralists who followed in his wake, defend indeed the Christian
stand-point as against the Pantheistic tendency, but they have no very
great scientific significancy. Among them belongs essentially also the
Roman Catholic theologian, Salat (1810 and later).
__________________________________________________________________
[245] Werke, 1812, 4 vols.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLVI.
The philosophy of Hegel knows nothing of ethics under this name; upon
its Pantheistic ground no really personal freedom can find foothold,
although it makes all possible endeavors to find scope therefor. The
reality of freedom appears essentially only under the form of
necessity, as that right which, on the part of the subject, is duty;
ethics appears only as the Doctrine of Right; its scientific
significancy lies in its decided advance beyond the previous subjective
stand-point (which appears even yet in Kant) to the objective validity
and reality of morality in the family, in society and in the state, as
real moral forms of humanity. In the fact, however, that only the State
is conceived as the highest realization of objective morality, lies
also the one-sidedness of the view, inasmuch as the full reality of
moral freedom remains unrecognized.--The Hegelian school has not
developed philosophical ethics beyond the positions of the master; its
application to theological ethics by Daub and Marheineke presents the
unrefreshing picture of a vain attempt at harmoniously reconciling
irreconcilable contradictions.--The school of Pantheistic radicalism,
which is nominally connected with Hegel but is in reality based rather
on Spinoza, has produced no real system of ethics, but only
narrow-minded and absurd essays on particular ethical topics.
The ethics of Hegel, as presented in his "Philosophy of Right," (1821;
better by Gans, 1833),--the field occupied by which constitutes a part
of the Philosophy of the Spirit,--rests on the Pantheistic current set
in motion by Spinoza, and appears in higher scientific maturity than in
Schelling.--The rational spirit, as the unity of the objective
consciousness and of the self-consciousness, is the true free-become
spirit; it cognizes every thing in itself and itself in every
thing,--is, as reason, the identity of the objective All and the ego.
In that the rational spirit recognizes rationality in nature, and hence
nature as objective reason, it is theoretical spirit. But reason knows
its own contents also as its object, objectivizes the same, posits them
outwardly, that is, the spirit is practical spirit--volitionates. But
in so far as it is determined to this volitionating by no other object
foreign to itself, but determines itself simply by virtue of its
rational being, it is free spirit. Hence the spirit posits itself
outwardly from within, objectivizes itself in freedom, realizes itself
in an objective manner. This its realization is not nature, but is
essentially of a spiritual character, is a spiritual world, a kingdom
of the spirit which exists not merely in the ego, but has an objective
reality the creator of which is the free rational spirit; the
objective-become spirit is the historical world in the widest sense of
the word. The freedom of the rational spirit is, however, with Hegel,
by no means a real freedom of choice; such a freedom finds in the
Pantheistic world-theory no legitimate place; it is only the spirit's
active relating to itself, its being independent upon any other
external entity, but it is nevertheless essentially at the same time
necessity. Thus the free spirit creates a world as the objective
reality of freedom,-- a reality, however, which has a general
significancy transcending the individual being,--becomes a power over
the individual spirit, assumes the form of necessity, whereby the
individual subject is determined in his freedom, and which consequently
must be recognized by the individual as the higher factor,--is a
general will over against the individual will,--is right, which becomes
for the individual, duty.
The Philosophy of Right falls into three parts. (1) The free will is
primarily immediate, as individual will. The subject of right is the
person, which stands to other persons primarily in an excluding
relation. The person confers upon itself the reality of its freedom
posits a special sphere of its subjective freedom in property. I
declare an objective entity as my own, and hence as that upon which
another has no right. This is primarily as yet an outward and not
necessary action; it lies not in the essence of the thing itself that I
declare it as my property; hence right in this sphere is the merely
formal, abstract right. The freedom of the subject is assured and
recognized by the fact that other subjects must concede the validity of
my freedom, my property, my right; freedom receives thus a general
significancy, becomes right. The freedom of individual subjects is
regulated by law, is reduced to general harmony. But that the reality
of this right rests primarily on the subjective will, and that the
general will is the product of the individual will, is as yet an
irrational state of things, and abstract right advances now, (2), to
morality, wherein the individual will becomes the product and
expression of the general will, but on the basis of freedom, through
free recognition. In the first sphere the subjective freedom of the
individual is bound by the right of the other, and hence trammeled. But
in the free recognition of this right, the bondage, the trammeling
element, is thrown off; right and law are no longer a merely outward
limiting element, but become the personal law of the subject, the
contents of his free self-determination. In the mere fulfillment of
right the disposition does not come into question; I may concede to
another his right unwillingly, and hence immorally; so soon, however,
as right becomes morality, the disposition, the intention, becomes the
chief thing, and the outward act a merely secondary matter. A man may
be forced to right, but not to morality; only free, cheerful action is
moral. That which in the sphere of right is wrong, becomes in the moral
sphere moral guilt. The intention of the moral action directs itself
primarily upon the rational subject himself, wills his welfare; but, as
rationality has a general significancy, this intention looks also to
the general welfare, to the realizing of the rational will and hence of
rationality in general, that is, to the good. To realize the good, is
for the individual subject, duty,--is no longer a merely outward law,
but an inner, freely appropriated one. The good as the unity of the
notion of the rational will and of the particular will of the
individual subject, is the end, the goal of the universe.
But in the accomplishing of this duty of realizing the good, the
subject finds himself involved in a multitude of contradictions and
conflicts; the outer objective world is, as related to the subject, a
something different from and independent of him; hence it is doubtful
and fortuitous whether or not it is in harmony with the subjectively
moral ends,--whether or not the subject finds his well-being in it. The
abstract right was a merely outward and formal one; morality is a
merely inward subjective something,--has harmony only as a postulate,
as an "ought;" the good is, as yet, only the abstract idea of the good;
hence there is need of a third, higher stage wherein the subjective and
the objective phases are united, where the postulate of the harmonizing
of the two spheres is realized, where the ought is also reality, where
the good is no longer an abstract general something over against which
the subject stands as yet as an isolated individual, but where the good
has attained to reality, where freedom has become nature, and law has
become custom. This brings us, (3), to the sphere of customariness--the
completion of the objective spirit. In customariness the spirit enters
into its true reality; the person finds the good outside of himself, as
a reality to which he subordinates himself, as a moral world. Thus
Hegel, deviating from the ordinary usage of language, distinguishes
morality [moralitaet] from customariness [sittlichkeit], conceiving the
former as the merely subjective and individual morality, and the latter
as civic or social morality. In the sphere of morality man is
considered as an individual who determines himself according to
abstract moral laws; in that of customariness he is considered as an
essential member of a moral community, of a moral whole, so that he now
fulfills not abstract laws, but the requirements of the concrete-become
spirit of a moral, social reality. Hence the end of customariness is
primarily and immediately, not the individual, but the moral whole. The
moral organisms constituted by reason as become objective, present
themselves in the three development-stages of the family, of civil
society (in which the individual subjects are bound together only by
legal relations), and of the state, in which appears the full reality
of morality.--The state is the moral substance as conscious of
itself,--the objectively-realized moral and rational spirit, the union
of the principle of the family and of civil society, the outer full
realization of freedom,--inasmuch as here the moral reality rests no
longer (as in the case of the family) upon a nature-ground, and no
longer (as in the case of civil society) upon merely outward legal
relations, but upon the common consciousness wherein the individuals
are conscious of themselves as organic members of the whole. Hence the
state is the per se rational existence, the highest manifestation of
moral reason in general.--Hegel conceives the state in higher
significancy than antecedent philosophers, namely, not as a mere means
for the end of the individual citizens, but as end per se, to which the
individual must sacrifice his particular and finite ends. This is a
decided advance, especially in contrast to the utterly perverse and
entirely anti-Christian state-doctrine of the eighteenth century, when
it was regarded as perfectly self-evident that the state has no other
task than to serve the interests of individuals, whether the interests
of the individual citizens of a state, or the interests of a class in
society, or those of a prince, but not to fulfill a moral idea. But the
state is also here the ultimate and highest form. of all morality, as,
indeed, Hegel recognizes no higher existence yon-side the finite
reality of the natural All, but not an absolutely self-existent,
infinite, personal spirit. The purely moral reality of the
church,--which in its purely spiritual interests is far above the
necessary outward limitations of the state, far above classes of
society and national boundaries, and has a super-mundane eternal goal,
and which, as resting absolutely upon freedom, does not exert coercive
power,--finds no room for itself in Hegel's system. All morality,
without exception, appertains to the state, and all reality of the
church must be merged into it,--a doctrine which of course was
especially favorable to the absolutism of politics then in vogue. All
that was usually ascribed to the church in its significancy for the
moral, falls here to the state, while religion is regarded only as the
basis, but not as the essential reality, of the moral spirit. "The
state should be reverenced as an earthly-divine element; the state is
divine will as present and developing itself into the real form and
organism of a world." Hence with Hegel, as also with the Greeks,
morality is merged in the state, and has no significancy beyond it.
"What man has to do, what the duties are which he has to fulfill, is,
in a moral community, easy to determine: nothing else is to be done by
him than that which is prescribed, expressed, and made known, in his
relations." That this moral community may also be morally a very
perverted one, and that consequently man may be morally obligated to
resist it, and that even the most perfect actual state, does not
embrace the whole field of the moral community-life,--of all this the
Hegelian system takes no account. In the carrying-out of the
classification of the moral subject-matter, the "Philosophy of Right"
varies largely in many places from the presentation given in the
"Encyclopedia" and in the "Phenomenology of the Spirit." The transition
from morality to customariness seems artificial and very arbitrary. The
freedom of choice here largely brought into requisition is entirely
without justification in the system, and even contradictory thereto.
The classification itself is also not rigorously kept apart, nor indeed
can it be; the sphere of right falls largely into that of civil
society, in so far as there is any real attempt at carrying it out; and
the protection of right, which according to Hegel falls into the sphere
of civil society, is utterly impossible without the state. Furthermore,
it is worthy of note that Hegel, in perfect consistency with the
principle naturally following from his system, namely, that "all that
is real is also rational," regards war, not as an evil, but as a
phenomenon necessarily connected with the highest moral community-life
or the state, and, hence, as entirely rational, and which simply
expresses in act the frailty and finiteness inherent in all finite
being, and which has in the moral sphere the same inner necessity and
normalcy, as death in the nature-sphere; war is death exalted into the
moral sphere. [246]
The Hegelian school, dividing itself soon after the master's death into
a right wing, which progressively drew nearer to the Christian
consciousness, and into a left wing, which sank lower and lower in the
direction of radicalism and destructiveness, has not produced any very
important results in the ethical field. (Michelet gave a "System of
Philosophical Ethics," 1828; Von Henning presented the "Principles of
Ethics," historically, 1824); Vatke ("Human Freedom in its Relation to
Sin and to Grace," 1841) develops, in opposition to Julius Mueller's
"Presentation of the Christian Doctrine of Sin," the Hegelian view in a
very ingenious manner, without, however, succeeding in reconciling the
unfreedom essentially inherent in the Pantheistic System with the
general consciousness of moral freedom of choice; evil, though regarded
as ultimately to be overcome, is yet held to be an absolutely necessary
incident of the good. Daub and Marheineke undertook, in their ethical
works, [247] the vain and thankless task of giving to the Pantheistic
ground-thoughts of Hegel such a turn, and of clothing them in such
forms of expression, as to make them appear as a higher scientific
expression of the Christian doctrines. But the rapidly disenchanted age
soon saw clearly enough the impossibility of this undertaking. Daub's
Ethics, as edited from his lectures in an easy and often conversational
style, though proposing to present Biblical ethics, is yet unwilling to
derive the moral law from the Scriptures, but seeks for it only in
reason, regarding it as inherent therein, and forces the Biblical
teachings, frequently with violence, into conformity to the already
adopted system; the lofty self-complacency of the philosophizing
theologian looks often contemptuously down upon the churchly
consciousness, and oftener still, artfully explains away its
significancy. Marheineke divides ethics into the doctrine of the law as
the objective phase, into the doctrine of virtue as the subjective
phase (virtue being taken as the harmonizing of the will with the law)
and into the doctrine of duty. Despite a very pretentious style, the
positive contents, consisting in many places merely in a loose series
of single, and not always ingenious, and sometimes even insipid,
observations, are really quite barren, and often involved in violent
self-contradiction.
The left wing of the Hegelian school,--which strayed still further from
the master in the direction of a vulgar Pantheism based on Spinoza, and
which does not rise in the ethical field even to the honest
consequentiality and earnestness of Spinoza, but, for the most part,
sinks back into the most vulgar freethinking of French
materialism,--has shown itself utterly unfruitful in ethical works; it
has made itself felt, on the field of ethics, less by scientific
productions than by impudent assertion. David Strauss is unwilling to
admit the fatalistic necessity of all the individual phenomena of life,
so consequentially affirmed by Spinoza; but he gives scope, without
hesitation, to chance and to arbitrary discretion, and affirms (of
course without any justification in his system) even the freedom of the
human will. What the world had not as yet known, Strauss presumes to
assert, and takes the liberty of blankly contradicting the principle of
Spinoza, that the human will is a causa non libera, sed coacta. In his
view, Pantheism alone guarantees the free self-dependence of man. If
God is immanent in the world, and hence also in man; if, as in the
Christian world-theory, the finite stands over against the absolute
Agent as a distinctly different object, then is this finite (the world)
only in a condition of absolute passivity; but in Pantheism the
absolute actuosity lies in the collectivity of finite agencies, as
their own activity. While in monotheism it holds good, that as truly as
God is almighty so truly are men unfree, in Pantheism it holds good
that as certainly as God is- self-active so truly are men also so, in
whom He is so. [248] What the drift of this special-pleading inference
is, appears at once from the following observations: "This holds good,
of course, only of our conception of the divine essence; whether it
holds good also in the reciprocal relation of finite things, where
Spinoza denies it, is another question, and one which does not concern
us in this place." He makes, however, in this connection, in order to
maintain against Spinoza the freedom of the will, also the following
very curious observation: "Spinoza declares individual man as unfree,
for the reason that only that determinedness of his essence and
activity remains to him which all other things leave to him; but in
this connection he overlooked the fact that also, conversely, only that
much remains to all other things which the individual leaves to them;
this is of course not freedom of choice, but it is also not coercion."
The honest Spinoza would doubtless have shaken his head in astonishment
at this naive objection.--Strauss, naturally enough, recognizes also,
as the highest moral reality, the state as separated from the church
and as entirely swallowing it up within itself; in the place of the
worshiping of God must be substituted art, and especially the theater;
for genuine morality, that, is, for the life in the state, religion is
not only superfluous but hurtful; for whoever thinks he has, outside of
his duties as a citizen of the state, still other duties as a citizen
of heaven, will, as a servant of two masters, necessarily neglect the
first class of duties. [249] In this expression of opinion he gives to
governments a very significant hint, as to how dangerous for the state
is an ecclesiastically pious disposition in the people, and how great
is the duty of an enlightened government to guard against it.--Lewis
Feuerbach, who finds in religion only a morbid delusion, namely, in
that man regards his own being as a divine object, declares religion,
and especially the Christian religion, as the destruction of morality,
inasmuch as it makes the validity of the moral law dependent on
religious faith. Nature is every thing, and exclusively so; to follow
the voice of nature is the highest principle of morality. This voice,
however, teaches us love to our fellow-men, whereas religion teaches
only hatred against those who believe differently from us, and directs
the love and activity of man, not toward other men, but toward a
non-existing being--God; only the religionless man can have universal
love to man, which is per se always practical atheism, namely, a denial
of God in heart, in sentiment, and in act. For a scientific
justification of these wonderful assertions we seek in vain; morbid
bombast supplies its place. That this theory of morality must lead to
the vulgarest enjoyment-seeking, is perfectly natural; and Feuerbach
himself explains himself as to the nature of this morality of human
love, very clearly, thus: "When I am hungry then nothing is more
important to me than the enjoyment of food,--after the meal, nothing
more than rest, and after rest, nothing more than exercise; after
exercise, nothing more than conversation with friends; after the
completion of the work of the day, I court the Brother of Death as the
most beneficent of beings; thus every moment of the life of man has
something,--but nota bene!--something human in it." [250]
Thus the philosophy of "modern science" has returned, in rapid circuit,
back to the morality of French materialism, to the practical morality
of Philip of Orleans under Louis XV. The more advanced and almost
insane productions of the still more "radical" circle, especially of
the circle of "emancipated" ones,--which formed itself around Bruno and
Edgar Bauer, and by whom even Feuerbach was soon stigmatized (Max
Stirner) as belonging among "theologians, "believing hypocrites" and
"slavish- natures,"--belong not in the sphere of a history of science,
but, at best, only in that of the history of the morals of the
nineteenth century.
We will mention additionally, in passing, only the materialistic
world-theory, which, though not directly springing from the Pantheistic
philosophy, yet coincides with it in its ultimate results, and which
has its origin more in the empirical study of nature than in
philosophy, and which in its moral views has sunk back to the French
materialism of the Systeme de la Nature (Moleschott, Vogt, Buechner,
etc.). If spirit is simply a phenomenon. of brain-force, and if man is
nothing more than a highly organized animal, then the moral catechism
is very easy and short. Vogt declares it as presumption in man to
pretend to be any thing essentially different from the brute; man
belonged originally to the ape race, and has only gradually developed
himself somewhat more highly. Man is guided and impelled, just as the
brute, by his own nature, that is, bly the laws of his material
existence, and with inner irresistible necessity; every so-called act
of the will is strictly a necessary product of the material conditions
of the brain and of the outer sensuous impressions, as determined by
nutrition and by the peculiarity of the brain-substance. Hence also
there can be no manner of moral responsibility; all so-called sins and
crimes are only "consequences of a defective nutrition and of an
imperfect organization of the brain." The distinguishing between
morally good and evil actions is merely a self-deception; "to
comprehend every thing involves also the justifying of every thing,"
says Moleschott. Hence, the moral amelioration of man takes place
solely through suitable and strengthening nutrition. "The more fully we
are conscious that by the proper proportioning of carbonic acid,
ammonia, and the salts, etc., we are contributing to the highest
development of mankind, so much the more are also our efforts and work
ennobled." Upon eating and drinking, these writers naturally enough lay
very great emphasis; it appears to them as a sacred rite, and
Moleschott is not ashamed even to compare it with the holy eucharist.
It was also reserved for this writer to stigmatize the Christian
world-theory and Christian custom as detrimental to the public good,
and for this, among other reasons, that thereby the national wealth
suffers a considerable loss from the practice of burying corpses in
special graveyards, whereas the bodies of the dead should rather be
used for manuring the fields. Those who look always for the truth
simply in a "progress" beyond that which has hitherto been known and
practiced, can perhaps inform us what the next further progress beyond
this world-theory will lead to.
__________________________________________________________________
[246] Phanomenol., p. 358; Phil. des Rechts, pp. 417, 427, sqq.
[247] Daub: Prolegomena zur Moral, 1839; System d. theol. Moral., 1840;
Marheineke: System d. theol. Moral., 1847.
[248] Glaubenslehre, ii, 364.
[249] Glaubenslehre, ii, 615 sqq.
[250] Werke, i, 355.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLVII.
The philosophical ethics of the two last decades, based in general on
Hegel or on Herbart, shows a manifestly growing approximation to the
Christian world-theory; but because of the rather
unphilosophically-inclined spirit of the age, it has exerted less
influence upon society at large than the immediately preceding
philosophy.
The most recent times have suddenly shown, after an excessive and
almost morbid intensity of enthusiasm for philosophy, an all the
greater lack of earnest interest therein. The excessive expectations
were soon followed by, discouraging disappointments; and while at the
beginning of the century the most crude products of philosophy, if they
were only presented with assurance, were sure of an enthusiastic
welcome, the, in general, far more mature and more scientific and
profound works of recent times have met with but cold indifference; and
though the philosophers of the present day have some reasons to
complain of the thanklessness of the educated world, and that only
ambitious rhetoric is now able to win applause, nevertheless this state
of things is clearly explainable as a reaction from the wild
intoxication of the past.
Nearly contemporaneously with Hegel wrote Herbart of Koenigsberg.
Taking up his position outside of the historical development-course of
philosophy, and, in keen skepticism, discarding the unity of the
principle of reality, he had in his elegantly written "Practical
Philosophy" (1808) thrown open a new path. In his view the previous
treatment of ethics, as the doctrine of goods, of virtues and of
duties, makes the will of a twofold character--a norming or commanding
one, and a derived or obeying one,-- and hence makes of the will its
own regulator; but this is impossible and absurd. On the contrary, a
will-less judgment as to willing precedes all actual willing; this
judgment cannot command, but only approve or disapprove; but it never
acts upon the will as strictly isolated, but always as a member of a
relation. Hence all willing presupposes moral taste, which has pleasure
in the morally-beautiful; thus the moral is conceived essentially
esthetically. The esthetical judgment as to the will leads it to action
but not necessarily; the will should be obedient, but it can be
disobedient; taste is immutable, the will. is flexible; thus manifests
itself the idea of inner freedom. Together with this idea Herbart
assumes still others,--ideas which are connected, but reduced to no
real unity, with this idea, and which precede all exertion of will,
namely, the ideas of perfection, of benevolence, of right, and of
fitness; by virtue of these five ideas the moral taste passes upon an
act of the will, directly and involuntarily, a judgment of approval or
disapproval. The full realization of the moral is society, as
expressing itself in different stages.--This work of Herbart, though
little regarded in its day, contains in its details many profound and
ingenious thoughts; the violently original character of the whole is
very stimulating, but not satisfying; the unity of the theory as a
whole is defective.--Hartenstein wrote in the spirit of Herbart, his
"Fundamental Notions of the Ethical Sciences," 1844, a work full of
thought, and presenting a much more candid view of the realities of
life than the writers of the Hegelian school, and not unfrequently
assailing Schleiermacher and Hegel with keenness and success. As
primitive ethical ideas, he assumes those of inner freedom, of
benevolence, of right and of fitness. Similarly also Allihn:
"Fundamental Doctrines of General Ethics," 1861.--(Beneke: "Elements of
Ethics," 1837, entirely empirical, and only partially based on
Herbart.--Elvenich: "Moral Philosophy," 1830, based on
evangelically-modified Kantian views.)
The "Speculative Ethics" (1841) of Wirth sprang from the Hegelian
school, but deviates therefrom in many respects; the Pantheistic
fundamental view is not entirely overcome; (ethics is "the science of
the absolute spirit as will realizing its absolute self-consciousness
into its likewise infinite reality;" in details it offers many good
thoughts, though also many mere empty phrases, especially where it
treats of religious morality; to close the development of ethics with
an amateur-theater as one of the most important moral agencies, is
surely a very odd fancy).-- Chalybaeus of Kiel: "'System of Speculative
Ethics," 1850,--doubtless the most important treatise on philosophical
ethics in modern times. Chalybaeus, in his work, breaks entirely away
from the Pantheistic view of Hegel, and treats ethics on the basis of
the idea of personal freedom, and does not, as Hegel, regard the ideal
and the real as in perfect harmony, but on the contrary recognizes evil
as merely possible in virtue of freedom, and hence its reality as only
fortuitous and guiltily-incurred, but not as necessary. A candid, sound
view of reality is combined with an ingenious development of thought in
clear vigorous language; and notwithstanding a few cases of the
lowering of Christian doctrines, this philosophical ethics expresses
the Christian consciousness, in many cases, more faithfully than does
Rothe's "Theological Ethics."--Also J. H. Fichte (son of the
philosopher) places himself in his "System of Ethics," 1850, upon a
decidedly theistical stand-point, and strongly emphasizes the idea of
personality, which in Hegel falls into so dubious a back-ground. (The
essence of the moral appears as love, which, as an "unselfing of the
personal ego," is carried out somewhat one-sidedly so far as to throw
the validity of self and of right quite too much into the
back-ground.)--K. P. Fischer (of Erlangen): "Elements of a System of
Speculative Ethics," 1851,--briefer than the preceding works, freighted
with thought,--likewise an essential advance of recent philosophy
toward a deeper comprehension of the Christian consciousness.
(Martensen: "Outlines of a System of Moral Philosophy," 1845.
Schliephake: "The Bases of the Moral Life," 1855,--inspired by Krause,
empirical toward the close, but keen and judicious).--In this place
belongs also, in part, the ingenious and deeply Christian work of
Stahl: "The Philosophy of Right--" [251] based in the beginning rather
on Schelling, but afterward more independent; the idea of the human
personality as a copy of the personality of God is, in contrast to all
naturalistic philosophy, raised to the full significancy and to the
foundation of all morality and of all right.
(The preposterously original Schopenhauer goes back to Indian
conceptions, and finds morality only in an annihilating of the
individuality. The will to live is the root of all evil; the denying of
this will is virtue. The will must turn away from existence, must turn
to will-lessness; for existence is absolutely null, and the will a
delusion, from which we must become free, Vulgar suicide is indeed not
right, for it is a phenomenon of a strongly-affirming will; on the
contrary, a voluntary starving of one's self to death is a real moral
sacrificing of the will to live. "The two Fundamental Problems of
Ethics," 1841; "The World as Will and Conception," 1819, '44, '60.)
__________________________________________________________________
[251] 1830, 3 ed., 1851.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLVIII.
The Theological ethics of the nineteenth century, in so far as it came
not into a relation of complete dependence upon some particular
philosopher of the day, remained either upon a purely Biblical ground,
mlaking no use or only a very moderate use of philosophical thoughts,
or assumed a rather eclectico-philosophical character. Rationalism
proved surprisingly unfruitful.
Ethics was treated in a predominantly original manner by
Schleiermacher, in a widely differing and irreconcilable double-form of
philosophical and of theological ethics,--in the former case entirely
irrespective of the God-consciousness, and in the latter, from the
inner nature of the pious Christian consciousness,--with great richness
and ingenuity of thought, but also without a rigidly scientific form,
and, in a violently-revolutionary originality, in many cases beclouding
the Biblical view with foreign thoughts.--Rothe shaped his "Theological
Ethics" into a system of theosophic speculation, resting upon the
philosophy of Hegel and Schleiermacher, but carried out in an unclear
originality, covering almost the entire field of Christian
doctrine,--constituting a work in which a pious mind, and exotic
thoughts deeply endangering the Christian consciousness, go hand in
hand.
Although the scientific treatment of the subject-matter of ethics in
the earlier and (in the main) Biblical moralists of the nineteenth
century, may be regarded as relatively feeble, yet they have this not
to be despised significancy, that in an age almost entirely estranged
from Biblical Christianity they kept alive the consciousness of this
estrangement, and faithfully held fast to the indestructible bases of
Christian Ethics. Reinhard's "System of Christian Ethics" (1780-1815)
has indeed neither any special depth of thought nor a rigidly
scientific form, and contains many insipid and useless discussions, and
furnishes no just comprehension of the inner essence of the moral idea;
but yet it gives indication of a thorough examination of the
Scriptures, and of an unprejudiced observation of real life, furnishing
often in detail good and morally earnest discussions, and avoiding all
eccentricity. His classification of the whole is poorly adapted to give
a clear steadily-progressive development of the subject-matter. In his
third edition Reinhard declares himself very decidedly against
Kant.--Flatt of Tuebingen in his "Lectures on Christian Ethics"
(published by Steudel in 1823) gives only carefully-compiled, purely
Biblical material, without impressing upon it-a scientific form.--F. H.
C. Schwarz of Heidelberg in his "Evangelically-Christian Ethics," 1821,
presents ethics in two different forms, in the first volume in a
scientific, in the second in an edificatory form, but which is designed
to serve at the same time in elucidation of the first,--presenting for
the most part a simple evangelical view, brief, clear,--but without
deeper foundation.
De Wette has furnished a threefold treatment of ethics, which more than
the above-mentioned works is imbued with philosophical thoughts (from
the stand-point of the Kantian Fries). His "Christian Ethics" (1819)
one half of which is occupied by the history of ethics (which is
introduced between the general and the special part), is more ingenious
than profound, and does not appreciate the full significancy of the
evangelical consciousness. His "Lectures on Christian Ethics," 1824,
are intended for a wider circle of readers. (His Compendium of
Christian Ethics, 1833, is only a brief outline.) With the exception of
this rather Rationalistic than evangelical treatment of ethics,
Rationalism has, contrary to what might have been expected, produced
but very little in the ethical field. The next most noticeable work is
Ammon's (comp. S: 43) later "Hand-book of Christian Ethics," (1823,
'38), scientifically very unimportant, and containing, besides many
examples and anecdotes, mostly only commonplace thoughts and mere
objective observations, without in any degree going into the depth of
the subject.--Baumgarten-Crusius in his "Compendium," [252] breaks
already, in many respects, with Rationalism; his work is ill-digested,
but in many respects instructive. Kaehler, in his "Christian Ethics"
(1833; a "Scientific Abridgment," 1835) hesitatingly endeavors to rise
beyond the Rationalistic stand-point, and gives much that is peculiar,
and also much that is superfluous.
Philosophical and theological ethics were treated very profoundly and
very peculiarly, but in a manner violently revolutionary and different
from all precedent treatment of the subject, by Schleiermacher; indeed
in no other science does the inner and unmediated scientific dualism of
this writer appear so prominently as here. His critical acumen, his
restlessly changing and almost fitfully metamorphosing productiveness,
showed itself here under the most brilliant forms; but there is for
that reason all the greater need of a cautious guarding against being
deceived by the arts of his dialectic genius. Introduced into the field
of philosophy by the study of the Greeks, and especially of Plato,
enthusiastic for Spinoza, and building mostly upon him, but also
powerfully incited by Fichte and Schelling, and uniting in himself the
collective, anti-historical and anti-Christian culture of his day,
Schleiermacher was not able to harmonize his Pantheistic and
unhistorical metaphysics with his heart-Christianity, which latter,
though sometimes drooping and wounded, yet grew constantly more and
more vital with the advance of his years; he left these two forces
standing side-by-side in his soul, and honestly entertained and
expressed religious convictions with which his philosophical opinions
stood in irreconcilable antagonism; and it would be a great mistake to
undertake to interpret the ones by the others. Schleiermacher did not
rise above this inner dualism,--a state which not every mind would be
able to endure. In his first period, he manifested in the field of
ethics a keen critical power, but also as yet great unclearness as to
the positive essence of Christian morality; and he did not keep free
from some of the serious errors of the uncurbed spirit of the age. The
moral laxity of the "geniuses" then reigning supreme in the world of
letters, threw its dusky shadows also over this mighty spirit. His
justificatory "Letters" on Schlegel's immoral "Lucinde," 1800, were of
a nature to be used, and unfortunately not without ground, by Gutzkow
in countenancing the "rehabilitation of the flesh" which was then
taught by this writer, and in casting reproach upon the sacredness of
wedlock. [253] --In his "Discourses on Religion," 1799, which breathe a
Spinozistic spirit under the drapery of poetic rhetoric, Schleiermacher
declares also evil as belonging to, and co-ordinate in, the beauty of
the universe. Morality rests upon religion. In his "Monologues," 1800;
which emphasize the ethical phase, there is manifested a bold,
high-aiming self-feeling,--the full, overflowing self-consciousness of
the youthful genius. Self-examination appears here as the basis and
fountain of all wisdom,--not indeed in the sense, that man is to
compare himself in his reality with an idea or a divinely-revealed law,
in order to arrive at humility and at a consciousness of his need of
redemption, but on the contrary it is an immersing of self in one's own
immediate genial reality as the fountain of all truth and strength,--a
full, self-satisfying enjoyment of self, a pride-inspired
self-mirroring of a nobly-aspiring spirit. [254] Though this unhumble
spirit of self-enjoying was not peculiar to him, but was rather the
spirit then dominant among the excessively self-conscious "geniuses" of
the day, still there lhy therein the germ of an ethico-scientific
peculiarity of Schleiermacher, as against the Kantian school. In the
latter, individual man is a mere moral exemplar shaped after a general
pattern, merely a single fulfiller of an impersonal moral law, the
essence of which consists precisely in not recognizing the peculiarity
of the person, but in throwing it off, and in giving validity only to
the general. Schleiermacher maintains, on the contrary, that every man
is to represent humanity in a peculiar manner, and that, accordingly,
it is the very opposite of correct to propose to one's self simply the
question, "whether this my maxim is adapted to be exalted into a law
for all men." Even as the artist does not produce an object of beauty
by representing simply abstract, mathematically-correct forms, but by
expressing that which is individually-peculiar, so is also the moral
man to be an artist, an artist whose task it is to develop himself into
a personally peculiar art-work, and not merely into a monotonous
expression of the species. He is not to strip off, but, on the
contrary, artistically to develop, his personal peculiarity,--he is not
to cast himself down before duty as a thought different from his
individual personality, but rather on the contrary "constantly to
become more fully what he is; this is his sole desire." Thus
Schleiermacher, in opposing the Kantian one-sidedness, involves himself
in the opposite one; both positions are equally true and equally
untrue, and the Christian view stands in the middle-ground between
them. If the Kantian view answers rather to the Old Testament
law-system, then that of Schleiermacher would answer rather to the
Christian idea of the freedom of the children of God (at least,--in
case it were applied to spiritually-regenerated children of God, which,
however, is not the case), so that consequently the presentiment of the
higher truth turns into untruth,--into a perilous holding-fast to self,
and this all the more so for the reason that it is absolutely and
independently based upon mere self, for "from within came the high
revelation, produced by no teachings of virtue and by no system of the
sages."
The "Elements of a Criticism of Preceding Ethics," 1803,--able but in a
heavy and often unclear style, and hence more celebrated than
known,--relate only to philosophical ethics, and discard, in keen but
sometimes unjust criticism, all previous methods of treating this
science, and present (as opposed to the more usual method of treating
of ethics as the doctrine of virtues or duties) the doctrine of goods
as the basis of the science, and, hence, ethics as an analysis of the
highest good; the good is the objective realization of the moral. The
criticism of the work is applied not so much to the contents as to the
scientific form, and seeks to show that the contents can be true only
when the form is perfect; there is no other criterion of truth in
ethics than the scientific form. Plato and Spinoza are esteemed most
highly. In explaining away the almost unbounded self-feeling of the
author, large account must be made for the spirit of the times; less
care is given to the demonstration of his own view than to the
many-sided assailing of the views of others.
The "Sketch of a System of Ethics" (published in 1835 by
Schweizer,--from Schleiermacher's posthumous papers, in an imperfect
digest of different sketches; in a briefer and more general form in
1841 as "Outlines of Philosophical Ethics" with an introductory preface
by Twesten) [255] rests upon the philosophy of Spinoza and the earlier
views of Schelling, but contains speculations in many respects
peculiar, and not always sufficiently developed. In this philosophical
ethics Schleiermacher leaves entirely out of consideration the
Christian consciousness, and indeed the religious consciousness. in
general,--knows nothing of a personal God as moral Lawgiver, nor of an
immortal personal Spirit independent of nature; this religious basis is
left so entirely in the background that Schleiermacher (as late as in
1825) answered the question: whence, then, arose in the moral law the
idea of a "should," which seems to refer to a commanding will? by
saying, that in the Jewish legislation the divine will had been
conceived as of a magisterial character demanding obedience; and that
this form had also been adopted in Christian instruction, and "thus
arose the custom of associating with moral knowledge also the should,'
and this custom was retained even after men had begun to reduce moral
knowledge to a general form, wherein there was no longer any reference
to an outwardly-revealed divine will, but human reason itself was
regarded as the legislating factor." [256] The two manifestation-forms
of God in Spinoza, namely, thought and extension, and the primitive
antithesis of Schelling, reappear here as the antithesis of the
universe in reason and nature, in the ideal and the real. The highest
antithesis in the world is the antithesis of material (known) and of
spiritual (knowing) existence. The existence in which the former
element predominates is nature; the existence in which the knowing
element predominates is reason, the two appearing in man as body and
soul. Hence reason is essentially knowing, and, in so far as it is
self-active, willing. Speculative reason is ethics, which has, then,
physics over against itself, the two embracing the whole field of
science, so that ethics appears essentially as the collective
philosophy of the spirit,--an entirely unjustifiable deviation from all
previous nomenclature. [257] Ethics presents the collective operation
of active human reason upon nature. Hence the aim of moral-effort is,
the perfect interpenetration of reason and nature, a permeation of
nature by reason, and indeed of all nature in so far as standing in
connection with human nature. This interpenetration is the highest
good, [258] the sum total of all single goods; it is embodied in the
thought of the Golden Age, where man dominated absolutely over nature,
and in the thought of everlasting peace, of the perfection of
knowledge, and in the thought of a kingdom of heaven, and in a free
communion of the highest self-consciousness by means of spiritual
self-representation. In the individual the attainment of the moral goal
appears as personal perfection, as a perfect unity of nature with
intelligence, and hence as a perfect blessedness.--But the unity of
reason and nature is to be conceived in a threefold manner: (1) In
reference to the end-point of the moral striving, namely, the real
unity of reason and nature, as the highest good; herein is embraced the
multiplicity of particular manifestations of said unity, and hence of
good; this is ethics as the doctrine of goods or as the doctrine of the
highest good; (2) in reference to the beginning-point of the moral
striving, namely, the efficiency of reason in human nature, and hence
said unity conceived as power, that is, as virtue,--the doctrine of
virtue; [259] (3) in reference to the relation between the
beginning-point and the end-point, and hence in the movement of the
power toward the goal, and consequently a modus operandi of reason in
realizing the highest good; this is the doctrine of duties. [260] Hence
a threefold manner of presenting ethics is possible and necessary; each
embraces really the whole field of the moral, but as considered from a
different point of view; each, however, refers to the others. In giving
all the goods, one must give at the same time all the virtues and
duties, and the converse. However, the doctrine of goods is the most
self-based and independent, because it embraces the ultimate goal.
"Every definite existence is good in so far as it is a world for
itself, a copy of absolute being, and hence in the disappearing of the
antitheses"; [261] a good is "every harmony of particular phases of
reason and nature,"--that wherein "the interpenetration of reason and
of nature is independently brought about, in so far as this unity of
reason and nature bears itself like the whole in an organic manner.
[262] --The doctrine of goods alone is fully developed, while the
doctrine of virtue and of duties is treated but very briefly and
meagerly.
In the doctrines of goods Schleiermacher distinguishes a twofold moral
activity: (1) In so far as reason exerts itself upon nature as external
to it, it is organizing, in that it makes nature an organ of reason;
(2) in so far as the interpretation of reason and nature is already
posited, the activity of reason is of a symbolizing character, in that
it makes itself recognizable in its work. These two activities manifest
themselves in turn in two different manners. In as far, namely, as
reason is the same in all men, in so far also these two activities are
alike in all; but in as far as individual men are originally and in
their very idea different from each other, in so far also is the
activity of an individual character, shaping itself in a peculiar
manner in each individual. This notion of a legitimate personal
peculiarity, Schleiermacher emphasizes very strongly, without, however,
really grounding it philosophically.--Virtue expresses itself either as
enlivening or as militant: as enlivening, it expresses the harmonious
union of reason and nature; as militant, it overcomes the resistance of
nature; under another phase it is either cognoscitive or
representative; thus we arrive at four cardinal virtues:--the
enlivening virtue as cognoscitive or representative is wisdom or
soundness of judgment; as representative it is love; the militant
virtue as cognoscitive is prudence; as representative it is
persistence. (In his academical Dissertation on the notion of virtue,
Schleiermacher varies in form somewhat from his System of Ethics.)--The
very unequal carrying out of the subject in detail presents, together
with great acumen, also much unsound and fruitless sophistry; the
brilliant thoughts shoot forth in every direction in sharp-cut
crystal-gleams before the dazzled eye of the beholder, but often only
to dissolve themselves suddenly again into a state of formless
fluidity. The interrupted, incomplete, un-uniform presentation, as
given in the hastily-edited edition, render the reading of this work
very difficult, and the ethical results appear by no means so rich as,
from the pretensions of the system, one might be led to expect; and it
is often impossible to resist the impression that the work abounds in
unprofitable sophistry. The academical Essays that belong here, though
ably developed, present after all but mere fragments of the whole.
A wholly different picture is furnished by the Theological Ethics,
which was edited by Jonas in 1843, from Schleiermacher's posthumous
papers, and from notes written by his hearers, under the title:
"Christian Ethics according to the Principles of the Evangelical
Church." [263] The idea of the moral is developed from the
Christianly-determined self-consciousness; hence ethics is the analysis
and presentation of the Christian self-consciousness, in so far as the
same tends to pass over into act. The moral subject is not considered
as a mere isolated individual, but predominantly as being a member of
the Church, and as influenced by the spirit of the Church. The state of
the human self-consciousness as in communion with God through Christ,
is salvation and blessedness. This salvation, however, is primarily
merely an incomplete but progressive one, seeing that we are always
still in need of redemption; hence our life is a constant alternation
of pleasure and unpleasure, and therein lies an "impulse" to activities
in view of arriving at true blessedness. In unpleasure lies the impulse
to a manner of action whereby the momentarily-disturbed normal state is
to be restored, that is, a restorative or purifying manner of action;
in pleasure lies the impulse to a manner of action which subordinates a
lower life-power (as willingly yielding itself to a higher one)
directly and without any resistance to the higher one, thus educating
the lower power, and, hence, deepening and extending the harmony of the
two,--the deepening and extending manner of acting. Both manners of
acting aim at effecting something, at bringing about a change, and,
hence, constitute unitedly the operative form of action, whereby man is
to pass from one condition into another. The purifying form of action
relates primarily to Christian communion, and appears as
Church-discipline and as Church-reform (reformatory action); and then
again, in relation to civil society, as domestic discipline, as the
administration of civil justice, as State-reformation, and as purifying
action in the relation of one state to another.--The extending form of
action, which is essentially the educating of the, as yet lower, but
willing life through the higher, takes place primarily in the sphere of
the Church,--aims to widen and intensify the efficaciousness of the
Holy Spirit as dwelling in the Church, and of Christian sentiment. This
presupposes the propagation of the human race, the production of human
personalities. Hence the extending form of activity in the Church is
primarily the communion of the sexes, and then the inner extending and
heightening of the life of the Church. Then also the extending form of
action relates to the state, and looks to the training of all human
talents, and to the transforming of nature for the spirit,--in both
cases as one common act of all the individuals belonging to the human
race, and hence a maturing of all the citizens through spiritual and
material commerce; (in this connection it is treated of property, of
trade, of money, etc.). This is the first part of ethics, that which
embraces the operative form of action.
Now, between the moments of pleasure and unpleasure there occur moments
of satisfaction (and which are consequently distinguished from those of
pleasure), that is, of relative blessedness, the fundamental feeling
proper of the Christian, and which is at the same time also an impulse
to acting. This acting, however, aims not at effecting a change, but
only at revealing itself outwardly, at making known its condition of
happiness to others, and hence is not an operative but a representative
acting. The operative form of acting is only the way for attaining to
the perfect dominion of the spirit over the flesh, that is, to the
feeling of blessedness; and the active expression of this feeling and
of this dominion is the representative form of action, which manifests
this inner self-consciousness by means of communion with others, and
hence from motives of love. The essence of love is the inner necessity
of the constant intercommunion of self-consciousness as separated by
personality,--rests upon communion, and develops it to a higher degree.
Although the representative form of action takes its rise from the
communion of the subject with God, yet this communion is mediated by
the Holy Spirit that dwells in the Christian society. Hence the
representative form of action relates primarily to the
evangelically-religious communion,--is divine worship, or the sum total
of all actions whereby we present ourselves as organs of God by means
of the Holy Spirit; it embraces, in the wider sense, also the virtues
of chastity, patience, endurance, humility, in so far as in them is
manifested the dominion of the flesh over the spirit. Then again, this
form of action relates to general human communion, which is the outer
sphere of this action, as divine worship is the inner, in other words,
the sphere of social life, the representative form of action in the
intercourse of men, as not immediately connected with Christian
communion, not, however, as an operative form of action, but
predominantly merely as beholding and enjoying. In this connection,
Schleiermacher considers, first, the social life proper, and
particularly social intercourse in eating and drinking under
circumstances of luxury and decoration, and, then, art, and lastly
play.
However much we may admire the creative genius whereby Schleiermacher
endeavored to establish and carry out his highly peculiar
classification of ethics, still in reality we cannot but declare it as
unadapted and unsuccessful; and, in spite of the great and almost
idolizing admiration shown by the public for the skillful
thought-artist, this piece of art has not succeeded in calling forth
any imitation. At the very first glance one recognizes the utter
unnaturalness of making Christian ethics begin with Church-discipline
and Church-reformation, and close with the subject of play; while, in
the second part, is presented the widening form of action in
Church-communion, and, in the third, the ecclesiastical worship of
God,--as also the unnaturalness of placing sexual communion alongside
of Church-communion as simply its presupposition, and of treating it
only subsequently to the discussion of Church-discipline and domestic
discipline,--and of treating of four Christian virtues, in isolation
from all the others, under the head of divine worship, and among them
that of chastity, which of course falls under the head of sexual
communion, whereas in fact all and every other of the Christian virtues
might with just as good right be treated under the rubric of divine
worship. The chief subdivisions of Christian acting as purifying,
extending and representative acting, cannot by any means be sharply
separated from each other; on the contrary, in each one of them also
the other is necessarily involved; the extending or distributive acting
is not possible otherwise than by a representing. At all events the
purifying activity could not be the first, for the obtaining and
confirming of life-communion with God must, as moral activities,
precede the purifying of the already-obtained communion. The feelings
of pleasure and displeasure are, as pure states of experience, not by
any means per se the bases of the Christianly-moral activity; both
feelings may per se be just as readily-immoral as moral; and the first
moral striving must be directed to the end that the pleasure and
displeasure themselves be moral, whereas they are here presupposed
unconditionally as "impulses" to the moral; but this system of ethics
is not written for saints (who might indeed be regarded as determining
themselves by the simple feeling of pleasure or unpleasure per se),
since it sets out with a purifying form of action, relating to the
subject himself. It is true, Schleiermacher brings this pleasure and
displeasure into relation to communion with God; but the apostle
distinguishes, also in the saints, a pleasure and a displeasure in this
God-communion (Rom. vii, 22 sqq.); hence if there exists also in the
Christian, before his final perfection, as yet an unpious pleasure and
an unpious displeasure, it follows that the moral striving must in fact
direct itself primarily upon this pleasure and unpleasure. Furthermore,
the entirely unusual separating of the pious pleasure-feeling and of
the blessedness-feeling (so fully that two chief-divisions of ethics
are based thereupon), is neither justifiable nor practical. The
objective goal of the moral activity, that is, the doctrine of moral
good, is rather presupposed than developed. Knowledge or Christian
wisdom is thrown quite disproportionately in the background, behind the
subjects of feeling, of disposition, and of acting. In general we find,
notwithstanding the great dialectic art employed, especially in the
analysis of ideas, still quite frequently an indefiniteness and
unfruitfulness of the moral ideas in their practical significancy,--an
excessive prominence of the subjective peculiarity and a corresponding
unprominence of a simple Biblical spirit. The ecclesiastical element
with which, from unecclesiastical quarters, Schleiermacher has been
reproached, is in fact reduced in him to its merest minimum. "With the
exception of the free activity of the Holy Ghost nothing is to be
regarded as absolutely fixed by the Holy Scriptures, but every thing as
accepted only provisionally, and to be regarded as remaining subject to
a constant revision." All symbolical settlings of doctrine are
Romanizing, and must be made revocable. [264] We cannot see, however,
why precisely the activity of the Holy Ghost is to be regarded as an
absolutely-established point, and not also subject to a constant
revision,--why it is not "revocable"; and just as little can we see why
this activity, if it is valid at all, should not lead to a real
knowledge of the truth, and hence to a definitively-established
knowledge.
Richard Rothe, standing in part upon Schleiermacher's stand-point, but
also making use of Hegelian and Schellingian philosophy in combination
with his own somewhat peculiar and daring form of speculation,
furnishes, in his "Theological Ethics " (1845-'49, thoroughly revised,
1867) a system of theosophy embracing also a large portion of dogmatics
and even some extra-theological topics, which, however much we may
admire its erudition and earnest thought-labor, yet, in view of its
wonderful commingling of Christian faith, extra-Christian philosophy
and extra-philosophical fantasy, we cannot avoid regarding as a
failure. Rothe manifests, in contrast to a large number of more recent
Speculative theologians, an estimable sense for scientific honesty; and
where he deviates from the ecclesiastical and Biblical view (and this
occurs in very essential and fundamental things) there he does not
disguise the antithesis in fine-sounding words; not every one, however,
could succeed so naively as Rothe in harmonizing with a pious faith in
other respects, such questionable contradictions to the general
Christian consciousness as are found, e. g., in his doctrines of the
omniscience of God (which he limits to the past, the present, and the
necessary), and in his doctrine of the church (which he treats in the
spirit of entire anti-ecclesiasticism). His merely-apparently profound
and frequently very unbridled speculations do not constitute a steadily
progressive and regularly-developed line of thought, but are in many
respects mere plays of thought and fantasy; and it is only after
passing through these portions of the work (which, though treated with
a certain amateur-fondness, are yet really very unfruitful of ethical
results, and are presented in a not unfrequently sadly misused
language), that we enter, in the third part, upon a frequently
excellent, beautifully-presented, and really ethical current of
thought, though not without also occasionally meeting with surprising
eccentricities. Rothe's view of ethics as a science we have already
mentioned (S: 3, S: 4).--The moral task of man is, by virtue of his
free self-determination, to appropriate material nature to his own
personality; hence the idea of the moral is: "the real unity of the
personality and of material nature, a unity as impressed upon nature by
the personality itself in virtue of its nature-determining functions,
or, the unity of the personality and of material nature as the
appropriatedness of the latter to the former." Morality is an
independent something alongside of piety, and rests by no means upon
piety,--is entirely co-ordinate to and independent of it. Ethics falls
into three divisions: it considers (1) the moral as being a product,
that is, the pure and full manifestation of the moral in the unfolded
totality of its special moments and of their organization into unity,
that is, the moral world in its completeness--the doctrine of goods.
The good is the normal real unity of the personality and of material
nature, the appropriatedness of the latter to the former. Here Rothe
considers, first, the highest good as an abstract ideal, irrespective
of sin; (in this connection are treated also of six forms of moral
communion, of which the highest and most comprehensive is the State;
which is ultimately destined to embrace all moral life, and to absorb
the communion of piety, namely, the church, into itself; the church has
only a transitional significancy, but the state a higher, permanent
one). Hereupon follows a complete treatment of eschatology. The other,
next-following, phase is the highest good in its concrete reality; here
it is treated, first, of sin, as something inhering in human nature,
and hence necessary and originally co-posited in the divine world-plan;
and, then, of redemption; where a complete doctrine of redemption is
presented. (2) The causality or power bringing forth this product, that
is, virtue, and hence the doctrine of virtue, is treated of in the
second part, and, in connection therewith, also the corresponding
un-virtues. (3) As this power is a self-determining one, hence there is
need of a determined formula of the moral product, namely, a moral law,
by the observing of which, on the part of the producing moral power,
the real production of the moral world is conditioned, namely, the
doctrine of duties, which in turn falls into the doctrine of
self-duties and the doctrine of social duties.--In the two first and
rather speculative parts of the work, Rothe treats of many things which
one would not look for in a work on ethics, e. g., of pure matter, of
space and time, of extension and motion, of atomic attraction and
repulsion, of-gravity, of fluidity, of crystallization, of vegetation,
of comets, and the like; these digressions into the sphere of natural
philosophy belong among the oddities of the work. The excessively
artificial schemata are repeated in constant and very strange
application, the quadropartite division being throughout observed, even
though the observing of it requires the invention of entirely new
definitions and new words; and not unfrequently are found entirely
useless and profitless splittings of ideas. The chief fault of this
work, however, seems to us to lie in the fact, that it unhesitatingly
lays at the foundation of Christian Ethics, theories which are utterly
foreign to the Christian world-theory, such as that of the
philosophical ethics of Schleiermacher, which, however, Schleiermacher
himself declared to be inapplicable to Christian ethics. Rothe's notion
of the moral is endurable only in a philosophical system such as
Schleiermacher's; and, even there appearing only as an oddity, is not
only per se entirely unsound, but also utterly in contradiction to the
entire evangelico-ethical consciousness. This consciousness has as its
moral goal something utterly other than the appropriating of material
nature to the personal nature; the kingdom of God has with this nature
primarily and essentially nothing to do.
The other more recent writers on ethics keep themselves more
independent of recent philosophy. The work of Harless: "Christian
Ethics" (since 1842 in five almost similar editions; the sixth edition,
1864, greatly enlarged), is a brief, able and purely-Biblical
treatise,--practical, purely-evangelical and well written; but the
scientific form is faulty; the ideas are not sharply distinguished nor
always held fast to; the clearness is more frequently appearance than
reality; the development of thought is neither vigorous nor
uninterrupted; the classification (salvation-good,
salvation-possession, salvation-preservation) is not capable of being
kept distinct; the second and third parts overlap each other, for there
is no possession without preservation; and what appears here as
preservation is in fact possession; the general introduction is
insufficient, and Harless himself says of his book, that it contains
"no trace of a system." [265] --The work of Sartorius: "The Doctrine of
holy Love, or Elements of Evangelico-Ecclesiastical Moral Theology,"
(third edition, 1851-'56), is intended for the general public, and is
not a scientific treatise, nor yet a book of edification; but it goes
beyond the limits of mere ethics, and embraces love in the widest
sense; hence it treats also of the love of God to himself, and of its
realization in the Trinity, and to man,--also of creation and
redemption, thus combining much dogmatical matter with ethics. The
spirit of the work is purely evangelical, of ardent faith-enlivened and
enlivening. The discussion, however, remains mostly in the sphere of
the general; the individual moral phenomena are neither completely nor
closely examined.--(W. Boehmer: "Theological Ethics," 1846-'53).--C. F.
Schmid's "Christian Ethics," edited by Heller, 1861, is of a truly
Biblical spirit,--earnest, judicious, and giving evidence of Christian
life-experience; the scientific classification and form are not
happy--are not derived fromf the subject-matter, but outwardly thrown
upon it; many weighty points are omitted, and the manner of treatment
is unequal.--Palmer's "Ethics of Christianity," 1864, is an outline
destined for wider, cultivated circles; the view taken is sound and
evangelical, morally earnest and judicious, and the style pleasing,
light, and untechnical.--T. Culmann's "Christian Ethics," first part,
1864, is based upon Baader's theosophy, and is in sharp antithesis to
all rationalistic superficiality, although, notwithstanding its many
ingenious and even profound thoughts, it strays away into many, and
even anti-Scriptural, assumptions and dreamy brain-fancies.
__________________________________________________________________
[252] Lehrbuch, 1826.
[253] Comp. Vorlaender's: Schleierm.'s Sittenlehre, p. 69; C. H. Weisse
in Tholuck's Litter. Anz., 1835, 408 sqq.; Twesten, in his preface to
Schleiermacher's Grundriss, p. 76 sqq.
[254] Compare the dissenting judgment of Twesten, idem, p. 83 sqq.
[255] Comp. Vorlaender: Schleierm.'s Sittenlehre, 1851,--keen and clear
but not evangelical.
[256] Werke, iii, 2, 403.
[257] See his discussion of the difference between natural and moral
law: Werke, iii, 2, 397.
[258] Ueber das hoechste Gut, 1827, '30; Werke, iii, 2, 446.
[259] Comp. Abh. ueb. d. Behundlung des Tugendbegriffs, 1819; idem 350.
[260] Comp. Abh. ueb. d. Behandlung des Pflichtbegriffes, 1824; idem
379.
[261] System, p. 54.
[262] Ibid., p. 72.
[263] Die christliche Sitte, etc.
[264] Christl. Sitte., etc., Beil., p. 184.
[265] Vorr. z. 6 Au. XV.
__________________________________________________________________
SECTION XLIX.
The ethics of the Roman Catholic Church since the dissolution of the
Order of the Jesuits has been becoming, even in the circles which stood
in connection with this Order, considerably more cautious; in other
respects it has been treated (when not casuistical) principally on the
basis of Thomas Aquinas. The influence of recent philosophy has made
itself in many respects apparent; in part, there has been also a
noticeable approximation to the evangelical consciousness, without,
however, rising beyond a hesitating half-way position. The
ground-character of the Romish church as distinguished from the
evangelical, namely, its tendency to conceive the moral predominantly
under the form of law, whereas the latter conceives it more as virtue,
remains the same even up to the present.
During the last two centuries the ethics of the Roman Catholic church
has made decided advances toward the better. The growing indignation
against the perversion of the same by the Jesuits rendered even the
Jesuits themselves more cautious, although also the works of the
earlier Jesuits have- been very largely in use up to most recent times.
Alphonzo de Ligorio's Theologia moralis, since 1757, (an enlargement of
the work of Busenbaum), is yet to-day one of the most highly prized
hand-books of ethics; (on it are based the works of Waibel: "Moral
Theology," 1841-'47, and of Scavini: "Theologia Moralis," ninth
edition, 1863.) The Jesuit Stattler of Ingolstadt (Ethica christiana
communis, 1791) taught, however; pretty boldly the old principles of
the Order; whereas, on the other hand, the opposition thereto was
growing more emphatic, and has resulted in bringing about a purer moral
view. The moralists who based themselves on the Scholastics, especially
on Thomas Aquinas, have been very numerous; (Besombes, from and after
1709; Amort, 1739, '58, who wrote also a system of "Casuistry," 1733,
'62; Tournely, 1726 and subsequently; Concina, 1745; Patuzzi, 1770; and
others); of the large number of ethical works, however, only a few have
any thing original; the majority simply compile from their
predecessors.--Under the influence of Kant, wrote Isenbiehl (1795),
Muttschelle (1801, Schenkl (1803), and others; Riegler's "Christian
Ethics," 1825, rests in part on Schenkl, and is much used, though
scientifically unimportant. Braun, in his "System of Christian Catholic
Ethics," (1834), and Vogelsang in his "Compendium" (1834), applied the
philosophy of Hermes to ethics. Sailer's "Hand-Book of Christian
Ethics," (1818, '34) is of a very mild and generally evangelical
spirit; and the approximation to a purer evangelical view, though often
somewhat infected with Rationalism, shows itself also in other more
recent moralists. Hirscher's "Christian Ethics" (1835, fifth edition,
1851) is doubtless scientifically the most important, and its general
view is largely based on essentially evangelical principles;
distinctively Romish views are in many cases very much modified and,
advocate-like, idealized and brought nearer to evangelical views; this,
however, is not accomplished without some sophistry. Also Stapf
("Christian Ethics," 1841; Theologia Moralis, fourth edition 1836)
endeavors to shape the older ethics more Biblically; Jocham's "Moral
Theology," 1852, is simple and clear; Martin, 1850-'51; Werner, 1850.
These improvements of Romish ethics do not succeed, however, in
changing its ground-character as in contrast to evangelical ethics; the
notion of the meritoriousness of human works as co-working toward
salvation is not yet overcome,--virtue is not mere thanks, but it
establishes claims; the moral life is not the
spontaneously-out-streaming radiance of the faith-inspired loving soul,
but it is a something yet distinct from faith and relatively
independent,--a laborious working upon salvation as only associatedly
conditioned by faith, but not yet really obtained. The divine will has
not as yet become an inner property of the believing soul in spiritual
regeneration, but simply still hovers before it as a something other
from and objective to it; hence the largely predominant character of
legality in Romish ethics, even where, on the basis of Thomas Aquinas,
the form of the doctrine of virtue is chosen. And here is manifestly
the reason why the Romish form of theology has produced a far richer
ethical literature than the Evangelical, seeing that in the Romish
Church not merely the scientific but also the practical need for moral
instructions and rules, is much greater than in the sphere of the
Evangelican consciousness, which latter is no longer "under the law,"
and has consequently in ethics less a practical than a purely
scientific interest. To the Catholic the Gospel is essentially also a
new law,--simply a further-development of the Old Testament law; and it
is the task of ethics to digest this new legislation and shape it more
or less into a statutory form; only to a Romish moralist is it possible
to take up into a treatise on ethics a civil criminal code, as Stapf
has done, in detailed thoroughness, with the Austrian. The Christian
never succeeds, here, in bearing in himself the Divine will otherwise
than in a law learned by study; the law and the moral subject still
continue exterior to each other, and the former is objective to the
latter; to act according to the authority of an outward law appears as
a special-merit; the law interpenetrates not the human soul, and the
soul not the law; there remains between the two an impassable gulf;
hence the law and the person content themselves, at last, with the
outward; obeying outweighs loving; and loving is never a merit, as
obeying, however, may be. Because of the placing of faith simply
along-side of works, there lacks to the moral the unitary center-point
in the heart, and hence the good appears predominantly as a plurality
of virtues, and the moral life predominantly as a countless sum of
single cases; hence in Romish ethics the predominance of the
casuistical treatment, which is not yet thrown aside even in the most
recent treatises; the thought of ethics awakes at once in the
Catholic's mind the notion of a Summa casuum; also, in this respect, we
see a manifestation of the predominant character of externality. The
notion of a God-sonship manifesting itself in a new free life never
comes to full appreciation in Romish ethics; the notion of a son of the
Church is, in it, much more familiar; and here at once the
ecclesiastical State, with its legal character, steps into the
fore-ground of the moral life.
END OF HISTORY OF ETHICS.
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
__________________________________________________________________
Indexes
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Scripture References
Genesis
[1]1:26-2:24 [2]1:28 [3]1:28-30 [4]2:2 [5]2:3 [6]2:15
[7]2:16 [8]3:7 [9]3:15 [10]5:24 [11]6:22 [12]7:5
[13]9:1-29 [14]10:8 [15]12:3 [16]12:3 [17]12:4 [18]12:11-13
[19]15:15 [20]17:1 [21]18:18 [22]20:2-4 [23]22:18
[24]24:12-14 [25]25:8 [26]26:3-5 [27]26:4 [28]26:4 [29]26:5
[30]27:14-16 [31]27:28 [32]27:29 [33]28:3 [34]28:4
[35]28:13-15 [36]30:24-26 [37]31:20 [38]34:1-31 [39]34:14-16
[40]35:9-11 [41]35:22 [42]37:1-36 [43]37:35 [44]38:1-30
[45]39:2 [46]39:3 [47]39:5 [48]39:23 [49]48:4 [50]49:5-7
[51]49:14-16 [52]49:26 [53]49:29 [54]49:33
Exodus
[55]2:11-13 [56]3:1-22 [57]4:1-31 [58]19:5 [59]19:6
[60]20:2 [61]20:2-4 [62]20:2-4 [63]20:3 [64]20:12 [65]20:17
[66]23:16 [67]28:30
Leviticus
[68]11:45 [69]19:2 [70]25:23 [71]26:3-6 [72]26:12
Numbers
[73]6:26 [74]20:7-9 [75]26:55 [76]26:56 [77]27:21 [78]33:54
[79]34:13
Deuteronomy
[80]4 [81]4 [82]4:1-49 [83]4:40 [84]5:1-33 [85]5:29
[86]5:29 [87]5:33 [88]5:33 [89]6:2 [90]6:3 [91]6:5
[92]6:6 [93]6:18 [94]6:20-22 [95]6:24 [96]6:25 [97]7:9
[98]7:12 [99]7:13 [100]7:13-15 [101]8:3-5 [102]8:6-8
[103]10:12 [104]10:12 [105]10:19-21 [106]11:1 [107]11:9-11
[108]11:13 [109]11:21-23 [110]12:28 [111]13:3 [112]13:17
[113]13:18 [114]15:4-6 [115]15:10 [116]15:15 [117]16:12
[118]18 [119]26:16 [120]28:1-3 [121]28:47 [122]30:2
[123]30:2-4 [124]31:16 [125]32:43 [126]32:47 [127]32:49-51
[128]32:50
Joshua
[129]7:14-16 [130]13:6 [131]14:2 [132]18:6-8 [133]19:1-3
[134]21:4-6 [135]22:5
1 Samuel
[136]10:20-22 [137]14:8-10 [138]23:6-8 [139]28:1-28 [140]28:6
[141]30:7 [142]30:8
2 Samuel
[143]2:1 [144]5:19 [145]5:23-25
2 Kings
[146]2:1-25
1 Chronicles
[147]16:23 [148]16:28 [149]22:19 [150]28:9 [151]29:9
2 Chronicles
[152]7:17
Job
[153]22:22 [154]22:26 [155]26:5
Psalms
[156]1:2 [157]2:8 [158]6:5 [159]16:10 [160]18:49 [161]29:11
[162]49:15 [163]49:15-17 [164]67:2 [165]72:8-10 [166]81:13
[167]81:14 [168]86:9 [169]86:10 [170]88:10-13 [171]96:7
[172]96:10 [173]102:15 [174]112:1 [175]115:17 [176]117:1
[177]119:24 [178]119:35 [179]119:70 [180]119:121
Proverbs
[181]1:7 [182]3:5 [183]3:12 [184]3:13-15 [185]3:18
[186]3:22-24 [187]3:34 [188]4:23 [189]6:25 [190]8:17
[191]8:35 [192]11:2 [193]15:24 [194]15:24 [195]16:1-33
[196]16:18 [197]16:33 [198]18:12 [199]18:18 [200]23:26
[201]27:2 [202]28:1-28 [203]29:23
Ecclesiastes
[204]12:7 [205]12:13
Isaiah
[206]2:2-4 [207]11:2 [208]11:3 [209]11:10-12 [210]25:6-8
[211]38:18 [212]42:1 [213]42:6 [214]45:20 [215]45:22
[216]45:23 [217]49:6 [218]52:15 [219]54:3 [220]55:5
[221]60:1-22 [222]61:11 [223]62:2 [224]65:1 [225]66:18-20
Jeremiah
[226]4:2 [227]7:23 [228]16:19
Joel
[229]3:1
Amos
[230]9:11 [231]9:12
Micah
[232]4:1-3
Haggai
[233]2:7
Zechariah
[234]2:11 [235]6:15 [236]8:20-22 [237]14:16
Malachi
[238]1:11 [239]2:15
Matthew
[240]5:5 [241]5:31 [242]7:21 [243]7:24-26 [244]19:8
[245]19:21
John
[246]5 [247]8:56 [248]10:27 [249]13:17 [250]15:1-3
Romans
[251]1:18-20 [252]1:21-23 [253]1:27 [254]2:13 [255]7:22-24
1 Corinthians
[256]13:2 [257]15:33
Philippians
[258]4:8
Colossians
[259]1:4-10 [260]1:9 [261]2 [262]2 [263]1614 [264]1729
1 Timothy
[265]2:4
2 Timothy
[266]3:14-16
Titus
[267]1:1 [268]2:12
James
[269]1:22-24 [270]2:14-16
2 Peter
[271]1:19
1 John
[272]2:4
Revelation
[273]3:11
Judith
[274]9:2-4
Sirach
[275]2:24 [276]3:16 [277]3:17 [278]3:33 [279]7:1-36
[280]8:1-3 [281]8:1-19 [282]8:6 [283]8:7 [284]8:19
[285]8:20 [286]9:1-18 [287]9:15 [288]9:30-32 [289]12:1-18
[290]12:10-12 [291]13:1-3 [292]13:1-26 [293]14:14-16
[294]15:15-17 [295]17:18-20 [296]25:10 [297]25:32
[298]29:15-17 [299]30:6 [300]32:27 [301]33:25 [302]35:23
[303]37:17 [304]41:8-10 [305]42:6 [306]42:7 [307]49:15
[308]49:16 [309]51:18-20
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Greek Words and Phrases
* andria: [310]1
* apoklinein: [311]1
* atopon: [312]1
* energeia: [313]1
* exis: [314]1
* ezo: [315]1
* ethos: [316]1
* hedone: [317]1
* ethe: [318]1
* ethos: [319]1 [320]2
* orthos logos: [321]1
* homologia: [322]1
* horme: [323]1
* hosiotes: [324]1
* Hupotuposeis: [325]1
* Eudemia: [326]1
* Kephalaia peri agapes: [327]1
* Ta eis eauton: [328]1
* andreia: [329]1
* arete dianoetike: [330]1
* gnothi seauton: [331]1
* dikaios: [332]1
* eis eauton: [333]1
* eutrapelia: [334]1
* eudaimonia: [335]1
* zoes teleias energeia: [336]1
* ethike: [337]1
* thumos: [338]1
* kata de toiouton ouk esti nomos, autoi gar eisi nomos: [339]1
* me on: [340]1
* megala: [341]1
* megaloprepeia: [342]1
* megalopsuchia: [343]1
* mesotes: [344]1
* me on: [345]1
* nomimos: [346]1
* ouk on: [347]1
* peperomenon: [348]1
* pephukotes archesthai: [349]1
* praotes: [350]1
* sophia: [351]1 [352]2
* sophrosune: [353]1 [354]2
* to kathekon, to kalon: [355]1
* to kata phusin: [356]1
* toleion: [357]1
* to agathon: [358]1
* to en ekasto ton anthropon phaulon: [359]1
* to bouleutikon: [360]1
* to telos: [361]1
* phoberotaton ho thanatos: [362]1
* phronesis: [363]1
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Latin Words and Phrases
* FIDES: [364]1
* `a priori: [365]1 [366]2 [367]3
* CHARITAS : [368]1
* Conseuetudo absque advertentia letale peccatum non facit: [369]1
* Is, qui ex necessitate vel aliqua utilitate offert se ad jurandum
nemine petente, potest uti amphibologiis, nam habet justam causam
iis utendi: [370]1
* Per se: [371]1
* Quia ex opinionum varietate jugum Christi suavita sustinetur:
[372]1
* Quis dives salvetur.: [373]1
* Quum sit domina sua integritatis virginalis: [374]1
* SPES : [375]1
* Summa casuum: [376]1
* TEMPERANTIA: [377]1
* amor convertit amantem in rem amatam: [378]1
* approbatio: [379]1
* canones: [380]1
* casus conscientiae: [381]1
* causa non libera, sed coacta: [382]1
* clericus regularis: [383]1
* cogitatio: [384]1
* concupiscentia: [385]1 [386]2
* contemplatio: [387]1
* convenienter naturae vivere: [388]1
* convenientia: [389]1
* credere : [390]1 [391]2 [392]3
* dicta: [393]1
* doctor gravis et probus: [394]1
* eadem desistente: [395]1
* eficaciter: [396]1
* ego: [397]1
* ens: [398]1
* ex aliqua justa causa: [399]1
* fides formata: [400]1
* fides, spes, charitas: [401]1
* generositas: [402]1
* gracia assistente: [403]1
* habitus: [404]1
* honestum: [405]1 [406]2 [407]3
* informis: [408]1
* infusae: [409]1
* intentio: [410]1 [411]2
* ipso facto: [412]1
* jurisprudentia divina: [413]1
* justitia, fortitudo: [414]1
* libri poenitentiales: [415]1
* licet tenuiter et exiliter: [416]1
* malum culpae: [417]1 [418]2
* malum metaphysicum: [419]1
* malum poenae: [420]1
* meditatio: [421]1
* memento mori: [422]1
* mendacium officiosum: [423]1
* meritum condigni: [424]1
* modus operandi: [425]1
* mores: [426]1
* natura rerum: [427]1
* non posse non peccare: [428]1
* non posse peccare: [429]1
* nota bene: [430]1
* obedientiae servitus: [431]1
* omnia sunt ex necessitate naturae divinae determinata: [432]1
* opera supererogatoria: [433]1
* ordo amoris: [434]1
* peccata commissionis et omissionis: [435]1
* peccata cordis, oris, operis: [436]1
* peccata venalia et mortalia: [437]1
* peccata venalia et mortifera s. mortalia: [438]1
* peccatum originarium: [439]1
* per se: [440]1 [441]2 [442]3 [443]4 [444]5 [445]6 [446]7 [447]8
[448]9 [449]10 [450]11 [451]12 [452]13 [453]14 [454]15 [455]16
[456]17 [457]18 [458]19 [459]20 [460]21 [461]22 [462]23 [463]24
[464]25 [465]26 [466]27 [467]28 [468]29 [469]30 [470]31 [471]32
[472]33 [473]34 [474]35 [475]36 [476]37 [477]38 [478]39 [479]40
[480]41 [481]42 [482]43 [483]44 [484]45 [485]46 [486]47 [487]48
[488]49 [489]50 [490]51 [491]52 [492]53 [493]54 [494]55 [495]56
[496]57 [497]58 [498]59 [499]60 [500]61 [501]62 [502]63 [503]64
[504]65 [505]66 [506]67 [507]68 [508]69 [509]70 [510]71 [511]72
[512]73 [513]74 [514]75 [515]76 [516]77 [517]78 [518]79 [519]80
[520]81 [521]82 [522]83 [523]84 [524]85 [525]86 [526]87 [527]88
[528]89 [529]90 [530]91 [531]92 [532]93 [533]94 [534]95 [535]96
[536]97 [537]98 [538]99 [539]100 [540]101 [541]102 [542]103
[543]104 [544]105 [545]106 [546]107 [547]108 [548]109
* philosophia moralis: [549]1
* poterat peccare et not peccare: [550]1
* potest peccare et non potest non peccare: [551]1
* prudentia: [552]1
* quatenus: [553]1
* ratio practica: [554]1
* reservationes mentales: [555]1
* restrictio s. reservatio mentalis: [556]1
* restrictiones mentales: [557]1
* sententia probabilis: [558]1
* sententiae: [559]1
* si forte haec illi favorabilior seu exoptatior sit: [560]1
* sobrietas: [561]1
* summa voluptate perlegi: [562]1
* tabula rasa: [563]1
* temperantia: [564]1
* theologia s. philosophia moralis: [565]1
* theologia s. philosophia practica: [566]1
* utile: [567]1 [568]2 [569]3
* virtus nihil aliud est, quam ex legibus propriae naturae agere:
[570]1
* virtutes cardinales: [571]1
* virtutes principales: [572]1
* virtutes principales vel cardinales: [573]1
__________________________________________________________________
Index of German Words and Phrases
* Anweisung vernuenftig zu leben: [574]1
* Moralische Vorlesungen: [575]1
* Sittenlehre: [576]1
* attentat: [577]1
* attentats: [578]1
* moralitaet: [579]1
* sittlichkeit: [580]1
__________________________________________________________________
Index of Pages of the Print Edition
[581]i [582]ii [583]iii [584]iv [585]v [586]vi [587]vii
[588]viii [589]ix [590]x [591]xi [592]xii [593]xiii [594]xov
[595]1 [596]2 [597]3 [598]4 [599]5 [600]6 [601]7 [602]8 [603]9
[604]10 [605]11 [606]12 [607]13 [608]14 [609]15 [610]16 [611]17
[612]18 [613]19 [614]20 [615]21 [616]22 [617]23 [618]24 [619]25
[620]26 [621]27 [622]28 [623]29 [624]30 [625]31 [626]32 [627]33
[628]34 [629]35 [630]36 [631]37 [632]38 [633]39 [634]40 [635]41
[636]42 [637]43 [638]44 [639]45 [640]46 [641]47 [642]48 [643]49
[644]50 [645]51 [646]52 [647]53 [648]54 [649]55 [650]56 [651]57
[652]58 [653]59 [654]60 [655]61 [656]62 [657]63 [658]64 [659]65
[660]66 [661]67 [662]68 [663]69 [664]70 [665]71 [666]72 [667]73
[668]74 [669]75 [670]76 [671]77 [672]78 [673]79 [674]80 [675]81
[676]82 [677]83 [678]84 [679]85 [680]86 [681]87 [682]88 [683]89
[684]90 [685]91 [686]92 [687]93 [688]94 [689]95 [690]96 [691]97
[692]98 [693]99 [694]100 [695]101 [696]102 [697]103 [698]104
[699]105 [700]106 [701]107 [702]108 [703]109 [704]110 [705]111
[706]112 [707]113 [708]114 [709]115 [710]116 [711]117 [712]118
[713]119 [714]120 [715]121 [716]122 [717]123 [718]124 [719]125
[720]126 [721]127 [722]128 [723]129 [724]130 [725]131 [726]132
[727]133 [728]134 [729]135 [730]136 [731]137 [732]138 [733]139
[734]140 [735]141 [736]142 [737]143 [738]144 [739]145 [740]146
[741]147 [742]148 [743]149 [744]150 [745]151 [746]152 [747]153
[748]154 [749]155 [750]156 [751]157 [752]158 [753]159 [754]160
[755]161 [756]162 [757]163 [758]164 [759]165 [760]166 [761]167
[762]168 [763]169 [764]170 [765]171 [766]172 [767]173 [768]174
[769]175 [770]176 [771]177 [772]178 [773]179 [774]180 [775]181
[776]182 [777]183 [778]184 [779]185 [780]186 [781]187 [782]188
[783]189 [784]190 [785]191 [786]192 [787]193 [788]194 [789]195
[790]196 [791]197 [792]198 [793]199 [794]200 [795]201 [796]202
[797]203 [798]204 [799]205 [800]206 [801]207 [802]208 [803]209
[804]210 [805]211 [806]212 [807]213 [808]214 [809]215 [810]216
[811]217 [812]218 [813]219 [814]220 [815]221 [816]222 [817]223
[818]224 [819]225 [820]226 [821]227 [822]228 [823]229 [824]230
[825]231 [826]232 [827]233 [828]234 [829]235 [830]236 [831]237
[832]238 [833]239 [834]240 [835]241 [836]242 [837]244 [838]245
[839]246 [840]247 [841]248 [842]249 [843]250 [844]251 [845]252
[846]253 [847]254 [848]255 [849]256 [850]257 [851]258 [852]259
[853]260 [854]261 [855]262 [856]263 [857]264 [858]265 [859]266
[860]267 [861]268 [862]269 [863]270 [864]271 [865]272 [866]273
[867]274 [868]275 [869]276 [870]277 [871]278 [872]279 [873]280
[874]281 [875]282 [876]283 [877]284 [878]285 [879]286 [880]287
[881]288 [882]289 [883]290 [884]291 [885]292 [886]293 [887]294
[888]295 [889]296 [890]297 [891]298 [892]299 [893]300 [894]301
[895]302 [896]303 [897]304 [898]305 [899]306 [900]307 [901]308
[902]309 [903]310 [904]311 [905]312 [906]313 [907]314 [908]315
[909]316 [910]317 [911]318 [912]319 [913]320 [914]321 [915]322
[916]323 [917]324 [918]325 [919]326 [920]327 [921]328 [922]329
[923]330 [924]331 [925]332 [926]333 [927]334 [928]335 [929]336
[930]337 [931]338 [932]339 [933]340 [934]341 [935]342 [936]343
[937]344 [938]345 [939]346 [940]347 [941]348 [942]349 [943]350
[944]351 [945]352 [946]353 [947]354 [948]355 [949]356 [950]357
[951]358 [952]359 [953]360 [954]361 [955]362 [956]363 [957]364
[958]365 [959]366 [960]367 [961]368 [962]369 [963]370 [964]371
[965]372 [966]373 [967]374 [968]375 [969]376 [970]377 [971]378
__________________________________________________________________
This document is from the Christian Classics Ethereal
Library at Calvin College, http://www.ccel.org,
generated on demand from ThML source.
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98. file://localhost/ccel/w/wuttke/ethics1/cache/ethics1.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=7&scrV=12#iii.iii.iii.i-p11.19
99. file://localhost/ccel/w/wuttke/ethics1/cache/ethics1.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=7&scrV=13#iii.iii.iii.i-p11.19
100. file://localhost/ccel/w/wuttke/ethics1/cache/ethics1.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=7&scrV=13#iii.iii.iii.i-p11.12
101. file://localhost/ccel/w/wuttke/ethics1/cache/ethics1.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=8&scrV=3#iii.iii.iii.i-p13.23
102. file://localhost/ccel/w/wuttke/ethics1/cache/ethics1.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=8&scrV=6#iii.iii.iii.i-p11.12
103. file://localhost/ccel/w/wuttke/ethics1/cache/ethics1.html3?scrBook=Deut&scrCh=10&scrV=12#iii.i.i-p3.2
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